Quality Content in Distance Education
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Universal Journal of Educational Research 4(12): 2857-2862, 2016 http://www.hrpub.org DOI: 10.13189/ujer.2016.041220 Quality Content in Distance Education Ezgi Pelin Yildiz*, Aytekin İşman Institute of Educational Sciences, Sakarya University, Sakarya, Turkey Copyright©2016 by authors, all rights reserved. Authors agree that this article remains permanently open access under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0 International License Abstract In parallel with technological advances in quality approval and presented to a person, group or people today's world of education activities can be conducted who needs education. Accreditation is a concept developed without the constraints of time and space. One of the most in education to agree on certain standards. One of the most important of these activities is distance education. The important institutions providing the accreditation of distance success of the distance education is possible with content education institutions is the Distance Education and Training quality. The proliferation of e-learning environment has Council (DETC). According to the organization's 1998 data brought a need for content production. In educational the average age of Internet-based distance education students process one of the most important subjects is learning contest. participating in the programme was 31 and the most Learning contest represents an entire course, subject important problem in the frequently asked questions section materials, content modules, learning objects about courses, is the validity level of the diplomas or certificates in the other information resources and periodicals. Quality of the content countries that they take this education in another institutions. in distance education systems come before the factors that While the studies of accreditation are still going on these determine the quality of education. kinds of questions subsist in the part of problems at education institutions. Accredited institutions have provided Keywords Distance Education, E-learning, Quality, standardised, Internet-based distance education programmes Content that are implemented by educational institutions which haves provided a way to solve these problems (Gürol & Sevindik, [4]). sIt ha been observed that there has been an increase in the 1. Introduction number of universities across the world implementing distance education through innovative forms of education. Many new concepts have emerged within education using Information on distance learning is transferred to the information and communication technology. One of these is students by communication Technology and in this point the the concept of distance education. Distant education is an quality control system of distance education is featuring. institutive education activity which brings; teaching (Batura et al. [5]). A quality control system is expected to be materials with communication tecnologies, teachers and fulfilled in a repeated 4-step cycle; planning, monitoring, students in different places together. Distance learning is one organizing and setting up set up all elements of the system. of the rapidly developing fields of education (Boas et al. [1]). Active, social-oriented, creative and self-sufficient In other words distance education expresses the model of an educational qualifications are the main criteria in the quality education system that the student and teachers in different of distance education. The supportive factors could be places make the learning-teaching activities with organized as motivation in education, self-organization communication technologies and mail services real (İşman, information and communication technologies with practical [2]). Distance learning is an important tool that meets the experience availability, distance education’s psychological learning needs of young people and adults. Distance learning and technological adaptation. Quality in distance education has a great potential at various levels. can be characterized by three elements: staffing, training and The development of modern information technology has methodological materials, material and technical encouraged the advance of distance higher education (Zhao infrastructure (Batura et al. [5]). Also distance learning is & Li, [3]). Quality assurance systems that improve the evaluated through quality control conditions, process quality quality of distance higher education haves been established. and quality of results. Quality conditions include the training In this context, distance education and the accreditation of and supply system, the material and technical infrastructure quality assurance systems are created. Accreditation in and personnel, process quality includes; education, science education is a way of verification of a definite institution’s and research and management, the quality of the results; two education quality which has been approved by academic dimensions are discussed: the quality of the students, and an 2858 Quality Content in Distance Education external evaluation of graduates is examined by; the The content management systems are the systems that the employment rate and, unemployment rate. The quality of the web site owner and the other authorised users’ private students; knowledge, skills and experience are examined. account information (user name, password, ...) with the The graduate of external evaluation; the employment rate, reached Web site Management panel by using the content unemployment rate and problems are examined. The that can be changed and add the new ones on the website University of Texas Pan American quality in distance (text, pictures, music, files, etc.). Web-based programs education is discussed from three angles; quality of content, which means the programs that works on the internet can be presentation quality and the quality of student services run easily to use without the need to install to the private (Davies et al. [6]). The quality of distance education could be computer and it can be reached from any computer anywhere evaluated by approaching the learning experiences’ results in the world. The software's that featured in content on these identified factors. Especially for the quality content, production are: Adobe Captivate, Adobe Presenter, Adobe content experts, instructional designers, media experts, Flash Adobe X pro Raptivity, Camtasia, Articulate, graphic designers and there is a need to be synchronised and Articulate Engage, Articulate Presenter, Authoware, Lectora, work as a team in one or more subject technology officer. Elicitus, Rapid Intake, Toolbook, Keynote, Webex For effective learning in distance education components presentation studio, Articulate studio. such as interaction via, text, sound, simple graphical Apart from the need for any software installation without presentations, video presentations, animations, simulations, providing rapid content development services that can be test systems, should be supported by feedback. The used if necessary to give a few examples of websites: proliferation of e-learning environments has brought the E-Learning Brothers: It is possible to get the SWF need for the content to be produced together and is one of the with a flash output by changing the desired content on most important points to be considered in the educational ready-made templates (www.elearningbrothers.com). process of learning content. The quality of content is one of Panopto: Fast offline content that can be prepared and the factors that determine the quality of education in distance published (www.panopta.com). learning. Numerous content development tools for distance Presentations 2Go: The program can translate a learning are available. The use of these tools are practical described course as an accessible content which can be quick to prepare and can bring about very different content. accessed from web save it with the person’s shared The most important objective in the design of educational information of the presentation and image in a content; is that it is easy for users to understand, easy to learn conference. (http://www.presentations2go.eu). and is an interactive structure. Related features that affect the Open sources and coded softwares show themselves at quality of content include: it should; be interactive with, development of the contents of distance learning. Open audio, images, animation, multimedia support, simulation source code is an application development method that and animation of courses and learning activities to give the presents an easy access to the product's source. It provides a work contains questions and tests. The other issue in content significant advantage in terms of cost open source content quality is to provide the content standards (Balaban, [7]). and development tools allow people with no professional Therefore it is important to investigate the selection of the skills to easily create interactive course content. Almost all Learning Management System (LMS) and Content software development tools have a graphical user interface. Management Systems (CMS) soft wares’ whether they use Most of this software also has Turkish language support. All the standards or not. Learning Management System software these features provide to prepare a content in a fast and easy enables the monitoring of user information. It allows the way to the content development teams who give a distance selection and registration of students in distance or blended education in institutions, instructors and the other people