Chapter 1: International Research: Responding to Global Needs

In most corners of our world, education is the means by which the building of human capital occurs. Yet education symbolizes more than economic development. Education is a conduit for facilitating the knowledge construction of individuals—individuals who hold the potential to solve the world’s global problems and promote human rights. Thus education is crucially important not only for its direct beneficiaries—individuals— but also for society as a whole.

No country has been able to meet these critical educational goals and development needs solely through face-to-face classroom instruction (Ryan & Fitzgerald, 2009). In many countries, distance education offers the sole opportunity for citizens to gain access to education. The widespread accessibility of distance education is perhaps its most remarkable character, as it increases the opportunity for employed adults, school leaders, and the less-advantaged to obtain higher education (Ding, 2001). To continue to provide such open access, distance education has always been responsive to new technologies and media, striving to provide access and autonomous learning, as well as new teaching and learning methods.