Introduction

In 1982, the name of the International Council for Correspondence Education was changed to the International Council for Distance Education. The event is often described as a watershed, signifying the emergence of the multimedia approach to distance education to challenge the former supremacy of the traditional correspondence education approach. But its significance is greater than this. It also reflected the tremendous growth of distance education during the previous decade which was beginning to be reflected in the expanding membership of the organization. Particularly notable amongst new participants in the international conference scene were the autonomous national distance teaching universities, of which a dozen were set up during the 1970s. This type of institution provided the dominant model during the 1970s. More such institutions were established in the 1980s and a few others are planned or talked of even now, but other, potentially more flexible, models are more characteristic of the late 1980s and the 1990s. The distance teaching universities were the influential, high profile institutions, which gave to distance education the credibility it had not previously possessed.