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In England there is a national survey of all students just before they graduate from bachelor's programmes called the National Student Survey (NSS). This produces a very influential ranking of all universities and colleges in England in terms of how the education they provide is perceived by their students. Top of this ranking every year is the Open University UK--well ahead of prestigious universities that are ranked many hundreds of places higher on world rankings. The author states that somehow, the Open University UK must be embodying fundamental educational principles very effectively despite being a distance learning organisation. In this article, the author examines what these educational principles are, and discusses how applicable and effective they are to open and distance learning programmes.

The article discusses the influence of the National Student Survey (NSS) in ranking all universities and colleges in England on how education is being perceived by their students. It mentions that the NSS is very helpful in knowing the strengths and limitations of the open and distance learning (ODL). It states that the ranking is determined by feedback ratings regardless of the differences in the school's resources, quality of libraries, and quality of teaching. It notes on the Formative Assessment in Science Teaching (FAST) national teaching development project, where in it differentiates, Open University in Great Britain and conventional universities on how their students respond to assessment.

Editorial. Discusses a symposium on student retention in open and distance learning (ODL) in Cambridge, England. Similarities between student retention in ODL and conventional contexts; Theories of student retention; Key dropout points in ODL courses; Actions to improve retention.

The first article in this issue raises some fascinating issues that relate to my own background in research into student learning and experience of courses in conventional higher education. Richardson, Long and Woodley have administered the Academic Engagement Form', used widely in colleges in the USA, and the 'Course Experience Questionnaire', used widely in universities in Australia, to distance learning students. John Richardson and various colleagues have previously shown that these questionnaires, separately, work as well in distance learning contexts as they do in conventional contexts: that is, they identify the same factors as components of students' experience, and the same factors relating to overall perceptions of quality of experience, as in conventional contexts. Of the many findings reported in the study reported in this issue of Open Learning , two stand out for me. First, academic engagement is shown to play a key role in students' perceptions of academic quality: engaged students perceive their course to be of higher quality. This does not tell us if students who are happy with their courses become more engaged or if those who are engaged become happier with their courses, however, merely that they are related. 'Engagement' here encompasses both social and academic engagement as defined in Tinto's model of student retention. Second, students' overall perceptions of academic quality are mediated by their perceptions of their tutors. The authors conclude: '... the attitudes and behaviours of tutors are crucial to students' perceptions of the academic quality of courses in distance education'. In conventional contexts the item on the Course Experience Questionnaire that relates most closely to student performance concerns the quality of teacher feedback, not teaching, and this is easy to understand in a distance context. The methodology of this paper (relying on factor analysis of questionnaires and multivariate analysis of the relationship between questionnaire scale scores and background variables such as age, gender, educational qualifications, workload and hearing status) may be relatively unfamiliar to readers of Open Learning . What is perhaps more familiar is that such an analysis adds to similar conclusions about the centrality of the tutorial role in ODL students' learning from very different kinds of study (such as of the relationship between tutorial attendance and student performance). There is a growing body of evidence that the same variables are involved in student perceptions of courses and of academic quality in distance learning contexts as in conventional contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Editorial. Discusses the articles on distance education, published in the June 2002 issue of the periodical 'Open Learning.' Components of distance learning systems; Concept of transactional presence in distance education; Operation of a staff development program; Developmental support for distance learning tutors; Comparison of distance learning models.

Examines issues of concern to many distance learning educators. Translation of face-to-face courses into distance courses; Role of learners' motivations and prior knowledge; Design of learning activities to foster reflection.