TVETipedia Glossary

Distance education

A generic term for modes of education in which the student and the teacher are separated in time and space. It includes online education (with ? 80% of the content delivered online) and blended education (with 30-79% of the content delivered online), as well as modes of education using printed material delivered by post and/or other tools for bridging the distance.

Source:
UIL 2016: Closing the Gap-Opportunities for distance education to benefit adult learners in higher education

Distance education describes a set of teaching and learning strategies (or educational methods) that can be used to overcome spatial and temporal separation between educators and students. These strategies or methods can be integrated into any educational programme and potentially used in combination with other teaching and learning strategies in the provision of education (including with strategies that demand that students and educators be together at the same time and/or place).

Source:
UNESCO 2011: A basic guide to Open Educational Resources (OER)

Distance Education is a process of teaching and learning characterised by the separation of teacher and learner in time and/or place for most of the educational transaction, mediated by technology for delivery of learning content but with possibility of face-to-face interaction for learner-teacher and learner-learner interaction, and provision of two-way didactic communication. Distance is about the transactional distance and not the physical distance. It is a conceptual construct with two key dimensions: structure and dialogue. Programmes with more structure and less dialogue are considered to have more distance.

Source:
COL, Open and distance learning: key terms and definitions, 2015 (revised 2020)
COL, Open and distance learning: key terms and definitions, 2015 (revised 2020)
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This document identifies and defines several key terms related to Open and Distance Learning (ODL). Terms and definitions are current as of May 2020. (Provided under CC BY-SA 4.0 license, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/)

A mode of education in which students enrolled in a course do not attend the institution, but study off-campus and may submit assignments by mail or email (also be referred to as: Distance study or Distance learning).

Source:
UNESCO-UNEVOC/NCVER, TVET glossary: some key terms, 2009
UNESCO-UNEVOC/NCVER, TVET glossary: some key terms, 2009
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This glossary has been published in the "International Handbook of Education for the Changing World of Work" (Vol. 1, chapter 5)
"The glossary aims to reflect the terminology found in the recent literature of technical and vocational education and training (TVET) research, policy and practice internationally. The most common and significant terms (including acronyms) are listed and, in some cases, national and regional variations have been included. To maintain an international perspective, other national and international glossaries and thesauri were consulted in conjunction with current TVET literature from around the world. Where definitions have been written by other organizations, the source of that definition is acknowledged. Unattributed definitions were created in-house at the National Centre for Vocational Education Research (NCVER). For some terms, where, for example, there are regional differences, more than one meaning has been provided."