Telephone teaching and audio-conferencing at the British Open University

Telephone teaching at the Open University takes two forms: one-to-one telephone tutoring; and small-group audioconferencing. Neither is used to deliver course content. Its use is designed to help students to learn from their printed and other materials, to resolve their difficulties, and to provide them with access to a tutor or counsellor. Audioconferencing at the Open University is essentially a small-scale, small-group activity (with up to eight or nine participants), which replicates via telecommunications the kind of small-group activity that goes on at face-to-face tutorials. This use contrasts with large-scale, delivery-based systems such as that of the University of Wisconsin Extension, USA (see Parker and Olgren 1984 for further details of the Wisconsin system).