ABSTRACT
INTRODUCTION In general, the literature has shown that “distance education can be more cost-eff ective than face-to-face education and that costs are predominantly dependent upon student enrollment and the fi xed costs of course development and delivery” (Cukier, 1997, p. 138). But cost-eff ectiveness of distance education is oft en infl uenced by several other factors such as technology choice (Rumble, 2003), amount of interactions (Inglis, 1999), and type of learner support (Hülsmann, 2004). Th is chapter is an attempt to provide an overview of cost-eff ectiveness studies in distance education by examining various factors aff ecting cost-eff ectiveness of both early distance education delivered mostly by oneway technologies and online education carried out via interactive network technologies.
