Terms used in Distance Education

A school …

0. mission and philosophy of the curriculum and instruction must align with the vision, mission and purpose of the organization;
1.  has an administrative unit;
2.  is a legal entity;
3.  is a learning provider, imparting skills and knowledge
to students;
4.  is a provider of services within a community of learning;
5.  is not a home-based educational program;
6.  voluntarily subjects itself to peer review;
7.  is responsible for the education provided in its name;
8.  undertakes the assessment and continual improvement
their of its quality, giving particular emphasis to student
learning;
9.  provides dynamic interaction between human instructors and
and  students and among students;
10.  provides more than just tutorial assistance to students;
11.  grants credit.

Asynchronous – students and instructors are not
meeting simultaneously. Instruction is delivered
and students access it on their own time schedule.

Blended School – a school that has both face-to-face
instrcution and distance education.

Distance Education – can be correspondence, online,
satellite, or any modality in which the teacher and
student are not in the same physical location.

Learning Service Provider – organization that develops
and/or provides various types of learning services to
schools, such as curricula, instrctional materials, and
programs.

Online Course Definition
Fully-Online – at least 80% of course content
delivered online with few, in any, face-to-face
meetings.
Blended/Hybrid – 30-70% of course content delivered
online, blending face-to-face and online delivery.
Web-facililitated – 1-29% of course content delivered
online. Uses web-based technologies to enhance
what is basically a face-to-face course.
(Sloan-C, K-12 Online Learning, 2007)

Third-party service provider – a professional organization
engaged by a school to provide services for and in the
name of the school to its students or staff.

Synchronous – instruction in real-time. All students
participate at the same time.

Virtual Schools – all instruction is non-face-to-face, no brick
and mortar classrooms.

Online glossary of terms (eLearners)