ABSTRACT
Reasoning that the emergence of a new set of problems is the necessary precursor to the establishment of a separate discipline, some have proposed that distance education should be considered a discipline in its own right (Sparkes 1983, Gough 1984, Holmberg 1986). Others might hesitate to speak of a ‘discipline’ per se, but rather view distance education as a ‘coherent and distinct field of educational endeavour’ (Keegan 1986: 6). Still others choose to refer to simply the ‘field’ of distance education based on the view that ‘there is nothing uniquely associated with distance education in terms of its aims, conduct, students or activities that need affect what we regard as education’ (Garrison 1989: 8).
