Creating an information base for an individualized support system in distance education

Abstract

The Open University, with over 60 000 students learning at a distance in its undergraduate profile, is the largest institution of its type in the world. With students spread throughout the United Kingdom and with such large numbers, the Open University has been critically aware of the potential depersonalization of the individual student and the possible subordination of the real needs of students to the bureaucratic requirements of the institution. By providing each student with a tutor-counsellor who is responsible for the progress of a group of thirty to forty students from initial registration to graduation, the Open University has sought to create an intermediary support, between the distant institution and the student, who has a responsibility for the student in the institution and has a personal knowledge of the student's general progress. However, since tutor-counsellors are part-time staff and since the University's system is large and complex, it has been necessary to support the part-time staff with up-to-date details of the information the institution holds on file concerning its students. The tutor-counsellor can thus operate in the context of his own personal ‘knowledge’ of the student and the University's institutional ‘knowledge’ of the student. The Open University has therefore created a general data management and file processing system which allows it to assist selectively and efficiently the work of the tutor-counsellors in their support of the individual student. This is a major step in the University's objective of individualizing its support to students.