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Open and distance education has been playing an important role in China’s development of higher education and lifelong learning. In 2012, the Chinese government approved six large-scale radio and television universities (RTVUs) to become open universities (OUs), including the Open University of China (OUC), Beijing Open University (BJOU), Shanghai Open University (SHOU), Guangdong Open University (GDOU), Jiangsu Open University (JSOU), and Yunnan Open University (YNOU). The purpose of this study is to provide a descriptive analysis of the transition from RVTUs to OUs, and the current state and challenges of open universities in China after five years’ reform. Five topics are explored in this paper, including: the new positioning of open universities in China’s vast and differentiated higher education system; award bearing and non-award bearing program offerings; implementation of the online teaching and learning modes; the use of Open Education Resources (OER) and online mini-courses; and the development and use of a credit bank system. A summary of these topics follows a discussion of four issues of open university reform, including key performance indicators (KPIs) for open universities, cohesion and resource sharing between the national and provincial open universities, quality assurance for award bearing programs, and planning to transform China’s existing 39 provincial RTVUs into OUs. It is expected that the results of this study would contribute to knowledge about institutional differentiation in the world’s largest higher education system, and on the merits of open and distance education in the human resource development in China. This paper may also provide insight for other countries that are engaged in institutional differentiation of higher education systems punctuated by the essential role of open universities in such planning and implementation.

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This article reports eight distance teachers’ stories about teaching at two open universities over the past two decades with a focus on their perceptions and feelings about the changes in their teaching practice. This qualitative study employed a methodological approach called the autoethnographic interview, aiming to document more realistic histories of the open universities and to imagine a better future for those universities. As a result, the paper presents autobiographical narratives of distance teachers that dissent from the general historical accounts of open universities. These narratives are categorized into three interrelated themes: a) openness: excessive openness and a lost sense of mission; b) technological innovation: moving online and long-lasting resistance, and c) teaching: transactional interactions and feelings of loneliness. The paper then presents a discussion of useful implications for open universities, which can serve as a starting point for more meaningful discussions among distance educators in a time of change.

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Open and Distance Learning (ODL) has a long history, one marked by the emergence of open universities, which was a critical development in the ecology of openness. Open universities have taken on significant local and global roles within the framework of meeting the needs of their respective regions of influence, and as such, their roles have evolved over time. Against this background, the purpose of this research is to explore the open university phenomenon by examining the case of Anadolu University in Turkey, a mega university that has transformed into what is now a giga university. More specifically, the research first looks at openness in education and how the concept itself has led to the emergence of open universities, before turning attention to Anadolu University, which is a dual-mode, state university with around 3 million enrolled students. Other issues that are addressed as part of this research include the rise of ODL and how it positioned itself within Turkish higher education; the historical development of Anadolu University and its massiveness, in terms of student numbers and services provided; local and global ODL practices; learner profiles, learning materials and spaces; exams and assessment and evaluation processes; learner support services, and Anadolu University’s contribution, as an open university, to the field of ODL. The research shows that as an open university, Anadolu University has narrowed the information gap and digital divide, has enhanced equality of opportunity in education, and has provided lifelong learning opportunities. More importantly, as an institution that has gone beyond the conventional understanding of an open university, Anadolu University serves as a catalyst of change and innovation in its emergence as a role model for other higher education institutions. The following recommendations were able to be developed from the examinations of this study: (1) develop a definition of “openness” based on the changing paradigms of the 21st century and online learning, (2) enter into national and international collaborations between open universities, (3) adopt culturally relevant open pedagogies, (4) develop and design heutagogy-based curricula, and (5) unbundle ODL services in mega and giga universities.

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The University of South Africa (UNISA) is one of the distance education universities that is shifting from open distance learning (ODL) to open distance e-learning (ODeL). UNISA started as a correspondence institution in the 1950s and it has since evolved into an ODeL university. The aim of this research was to assess and determine the maturity levels of UNISA lecturers’ and tutors’ explorations of various forms of e-learning technologies to support students in an ODeL environment. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 12 academic staff members. A hybrid approach involving inductive and deductive reasoning was used to guide the whole research process. The online course design maturity model (OCDMM) was modified and adapted in order to guide data collection, data analysis, and the interpretation of results. The results of the study indicate that the maturity levels of UNISA’s student support e-learning technologies are at the basic levels of the maturity assessment framework for open distance e-learning. It is hoped that the results of this research will serve as a starting point that the University can use to constantly measure improvements made in advancing e-learning activities.

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In recent years, quality assurance (QA) in higher education has received increasing attention by academics, learners, institutions, and governments alike. Many open universities (OUs) have taken steps to re-define or re-orient their systems and practices to integrate quality. While there is a growing body of literature on QA best practices, there has been little investigation into the factors that influence institutions to improve or adopt QA and how these factors impact on the specific manifestations of institutional QA. This paper examines the challenges of QA implementation in OUs and, using a neo-institutionalist lens, it advances a framework for understanding drivers of institutional QA implementation. The framework is applied to the case of the Open University of Mauritius (OUM). Existing literature, institutional records, interviews and reports are analysed to assess how exogenous and endogenous factors have influenced QA implementation at OUM, with a focus on addressing the specificities of open and distance learning (ODL). A better understanding of the drivers of change for QA can help OUs plan the implementation of QA mechanisms in a more comprehensive way and to systematically develop a culture of quality that responds to the ideological and practical context of ODL.

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Correspondence courses have been offered in Brazil since the late 19th century; in the 20th century, instructional media such as radio and television were successfully used long before the introduction of the Internet. However, distance education (DE) was officially established in Brazil only in 1996 by the National Educational Law of Policies and Bases. Several censuses conducted by the Brazilian Ministry of Education and the Brazilian Association of Distance Education (ABED) collected statistics on the number of institutions and students involved in DE in Brazil. Although higher education DE has developed in the country since then, several attempts to create an Open University failed. The institution that is now The Open University of Brazil (UAB), created in 2005, focused mainly on teacher education. However, it is not a new institution (but rather a system of older institutions). It is neither a university (but rather a consortium of public federal, state, and municipal face-to-face educational institutions), nor open (candidates should have at least finished high school and are required to pass a rigorous entrance exam). Although UAB certainly contributed to the progress of DE in Brazil, it faces many challenges and problems, such as the continuously questioned quality of its learning support centers, labor relations, issues related to hiring face-to-face and online tutors, and the structure and organization of producing content for courses. This article presents a brief history and the main characteristics of DE in Brazil, details UAB’s structure, and discusses the challenges it faces.

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Since open universities can adapt to students’ work schedules, personal preferences, age, and so on, they have facilitated access to education for a large group of people. The open university phenomenon, which arose in the 1960s, fostered countries’ cultural growth; higher education was now longer exclusively for a privileged few. This paper presents a bibliometric study on the existing scientific output on open universities throughout the last 40 years. A bespoke methodology of bibliometric studies has been used, by setting key descriptors to be consulted in the most prestigious scientific database Web of Science. The sample was composed of 809 papers in total, indexed in prestigious journals and published during the period 1969 to 2018. The output, scattering, and impact bibliometric indicators were analysed in those papers. Among the results obtained, it was found that scientific output on open universities is in a phase of exponential growth, in which 2015 was the most productive year. Furthermore, the UK, where the phenomenon of open universities started, is the country with the most scientific output. Finally, the bibliometric study of the output indexed in the Web of Science shows a panoramic vision of the past, present, and future of open universities, emphasising the idea that this phenomenon is continuing to grow.

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Student persistence has long been a major challenge for open universities. Despite the evolution of open education, an overall high student attrition rate remains. This paper examines the changes and trends in factors related to student persistence in open universities. It reviews the empirical studies from the 1970s to the 2010s which reported factors influencing student persistence. The relevant studies were searched from databases, including Scopus, Web of Science, and Google Scholar. Among the 108 studies collected, a total of 284 factors influencing student persistence were identified. The factors were categorised into student factors, institutional factors, and environmental factors. Their changes and trends over the years were examined. The results show that student factors were the most frequently studied over the years examined, with the major categories being students’ psychological attributes and outcomes. Institutional factors have been increasingly studied in recent decades, with the design and delivery of programmes and courses being the strongest category. Finally, environmental factors have been decreasingly examined, with factors related to students’ family and work being the two main categories. Based on the results, the implications for developing intervention and retention strategies for student persistence in open universities are discussed.

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This paper considers the current state of the United Kingdom Open University (UKOU) and the implications for the evolution of higher education, whether through open or traditional institutions. Although 50 years have passed since the establishment of UKOU, the first open university, such institutions seem to be losing their ground, notably because they face challenges in creating a clear identity for themselves. By definition, they have been distinguished from traditional universities by offering both open access and open admission. However, some cases of open access (i.e., distance teaching through the adoption of various technologies) are found in China, South Africa, the USSR, and the US. Even so, the introduction of open admission policies can be considered a core feature of open universities. Such policies have been criticized for creating a so-called revolving door, with students failing almost immediately. To counteract this, UKOU developed a particular quality assurance system, which allowed them to be an authoritative higher education institution. Specifically, they structured regional networks with shared responsibilities, to offer all the elements that make up a university including headquarters, regional offices, and even spaces for students. This form of networked university is what differentiates open universities from the traditional university model and constitutes a unique feature of this type of educational institution.

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The purpose of this study is to provide an overview of how open universities depict their current institutional engagement in open educational practices. In view of the growth of programming for non-traditional students by conventional universities, particularly through online learning and increasing interest in open educational practices, the intention is to gain a better understanding of the unique contributions currently made, or potentially to be made, by open universities in comparison to conventional universities. The study is conducted through a content analysis of open university websites, exploring key themes related to access-oriented open educational practices derived from terms and related concepts in relevant literature. With the growth of distance education, online learning, and other emerging access-oriented open educational practices in traditional higher education, open universities should be uniquely situated to provide visible leadership in these domains. The open university website content analysis explores the extent to which this is the case.

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This article examines the innovative past of the large-scale, single-mode open universities that follow the model of the UK Open University (UKOU), analyzes the main challenges which they are currently facing in the digital era, and concludes with highlighting leading prospects for their future operation. The establishment of the UKOU in 1969 marked a new era in distance higher education. It gave distance education a new legitimacy and opened up new prospects for populations that for a variety of reasons were unable to attend a campus-based university. Many of the new open universities were heralded as a conspicuous development in higher education, with innovative features such as: open access, reaching out to part-time adult students, providing academic faculty the opportunity to work in teams to prepare study materials, modular credit accumulation, teaching huge numbers of students, and harnessing innovative technologies into their teaching/learning processes. In the last three decades, many of these innovative characteristics pioneered by open universities have been adopted by campus universities. This has eroded the unique status of open universities in many national jurisdictions. Furthermore, the emergence of digital technologies has challenged the underlying premises of the industrial model of many open universities, as well as their logistic operation. Present challenges facing open universities emerge from: blurred boundaries between distance and campus universities; the changing of initial target populations; the need to restructure the technological and logistic infrastructure of open universities; the changing roles of the academic faculty; and the growing competition for both students and funds. In order to find success and keep being relevant in the future, open universities should take into consideration: future target populations; the use of MOOCs and OER; support systems for both students and professors; collaboration with other higher education institutions; collaboration with the corporate and work worlds; and enhancing the academic status of open universities.

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We begin by summarising Prasad’s (2018) work on the disconnect between the social purposes of open universities and their achievement. Next, we will revisit the concept of the iron triangle from the 1990s, which explores the three topics access, cost, and quality. How does it apply to distance education conducted with today’s technologies? A distinction made in the 1970s between independent and interactive learning activities helps us pursue this question further. A discussion among open university executive heads from around the world in 2017 sets the stage for the final section, which reflects on the current challenges facing open universities. How should they address the competition from the rapidly expanding online offerings of campus institutions? We review economic models, the use of technology, governance and management arrangements, and teaching. The successful systems conceived by the UK Open University in the late 1960s stimulated the creation of many other open universities. How should they be updated today?

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Mexico’s national university (UNAM) is a public mega university with a 46-year history in open education. This article presents an analysis based on the open, online, flexible provision of technology-enhanced higher education (OOFAT) model, developed by Orr and his colleagues (2018). The aim of this analysis was to characterize UNAM’s open and distance education system in terms of openness, flexibility, and its business model, in three distinct time periods. According to this analysis, the system has evolved in all areas, and at present has a content-focused approach in terms of flexibility and openness, which differs from the OOFAT at the center approach that is desired. The study also characterized the UNAM system’s business model as a prospector-like approach, which highlights the possibilities for instilling innovation through the schools that comprise this system. The analysis allowed for mapping the current situation and thus sheds light on defining the steps necessary for creating an integrally open system.