South African Institute for Distance Education

From Researching Virtual Initiatives in Education

The South African Institute for Distance Education (SAIDE) was created as an educational trust in 1992, entirely supported by the European Union (but has worked on its financial sustainability since then).

SAIDE is committed to increasing equitable and meaningful access to knowledge, skills and learning through the adoption of open learning principles and distance education strategies. SAIDE has the following aims:

• to successfully promote open learning and quality distance education in key policy areas and in different educational sectors;
• to support programmes in adopting sound distance education practices in course design, materials development, learner support, the use of technology and in management;
• to build knowledge about distance education through research, the development of resources and the dissemination of information.

SAIDE works with different partnerships, people or organizations from a range of education and training sectors, for example NADEOSA.

It offers detailed information about distance education in South Africa through several reports:

• Overview of Distance Education in South Africa (DOC - EN - 2006) by Jennifer Glennie with Maryla Bialobrzeska, SAIDE.
• Review of Distance Education Policy in South Africa Since 1948 (DOC - EN - 13 pages) by Thandiwe Ngengebule – UNISA with specific references to UNISA and Technikon South Africa.
• Designing and Delivering Distance Education: Quality Criteria and Case Studies from South Africa. Section One (PDF - EN - 17 pages, by Tessa Welch and Yvonne Reed with NADEOSA Quality Criteria Task Team
• Designing and Delivering Distance Education: Quality Criteria and Case Studies from South Africa. Section Two (PDF - EN - 40 pages)

Its web site can be found at http://www.saide.org.za/frontend/.

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