远程教育进入高等教育主流了吗？

Has distance education entered the mainstream of higher education?

半个世纪以来,进入"主流"是远程教育工作者萦绕于怀的梦想。本文从历史的视角回顾远程教育"主流化"历程。文章首先归纳远程教育与面授教育的三种融合形式,即双轨模式、锦上添花模式和完全融合模式,并指出目前尚无完全融合的案例。文章接着简要分析远程教育与面授教育的相互影响,讨论融合对开放大学和普通高校的启示,认为开放大学要有自豪感但不能没有危机感和自信,而普通高校则必须充分认识融合的复杂性和艰巨性,遵循远程教育规律,才能取得协同效应。文章最后指出,远程教育凭借自身对高等教育发展的贡献和在当今高等教育领域的地位已经进入高等教育主流。

In the past five decades, distance education practitioners have been striving so hard to enter the mainstream of higher education. This article reviews the ‘mainstreaming'process of distance education from a historical perspective. Informed by existing literature, it first classifies the convergence of distance education and campus-based education into three types: dual-mode, add-on/blended, and full convergence, with the last type having yet to be fully realized. It then analyzes the interplay between these two models of education. Implications of convergence are discussed with the main argument that distance education universities should be proud of the increasing presence of distance education in campusbased universities but with confidence to maintain their advantages in distance education provision and that campus-based institutions should adopt a systems approach to integrating distance education into their campus-based practice if they intend to take full advantage of distance education. The article concludes with the assertion that distance education has entered the mainstream of higher education not because it is part of campus-based education but in its own right.