Postmortem on a Distance Education Course: Successes and Failures

Abstract

Athabasca University (AU) is an open university committed to delivering courses via distance education technology. In 1973, AU started work on "World Ecology: The Scientific Context" as its first home study course. This paper describes the birth, life, and death of this course. We deal here with the successes and failures associated with the design, production, delivery, and evaluation of the course, not with its content. Our findings may help academics and managers save time, effort, and expense in producing and delivering their own courses (cf. Fyfe 1981; Gussow 1978).