ABSTRACT
Due to the unusual origin of distance education, the peculiarity of its methods, and its rapid unprecedented growth during the last twenty years, the question of its basic character and true nature has been dealt with several times. It may also well be that practitioners and scholars like to ponder on this phenomenon. The result is quite a number of theoretical explanations (Moore 1973, Wedemeyer 1977, Sewart 1978, Bååth 1980, Holmberg and Schümer 1980).
