L OUISE M O R A N  a n d  IAN MUGRIDGE 
(edit o r s ) ,  1 9 93: C o l l aboration in distance 
collaboration in distance education - international 
case studies. Routledge, London and New York, 
178pp, NZ$169. 95. 

This book is published at a time when the case 
for inter-institutional collaboration is very 
strong. In many western countries governments 
are now encouraging more young people to 
enrol in tertiary educational institutions while 
requiring universities and polytechnics to 
manage with decreased funding relative to this 
growth. These changes are taking place at a time 
w h e n  i n f o r m a t i o n  and communication 
technologies are converging and distance 
education is taking on a new significance for 
both educational administrators and policy 
makers. Collaboration in Distance Education is one 
of the first publications in the new Routledge 
series in distance education and provides 
educators, managers and policy makers with a 
v a r i e t y  of m a t e r i a l  to consider in t h e  
implementation of formal interinstitutional 
arrangements. The appearance of a well­
r e s e a r c h e d  t e x t  on inter-institutional 
collaboration is very welcome and should find 
a r e a d y  m a r k e t  in both developed a n d  
developing countries. T h i s  volume of case 
studies of collaboration in distance education is 
largely based on institutions in Australia, 
Canada, Malaysia and the United States, and, 
from a practitione r ' s  point of view, is long 
o v e r d u e .  However, the complexity of 
developing collaborative arrangements between 
educational institutions in the variety of contexts 
described in this book, underlines the fact that 
it is not something to be undertaken without 
considerable planning. 

Moran and Mugridge note that collaboration in 
distance education was the subject of discussion 
as long ago as 1979 at the tenth anniversary 
conference of the British Open University. 
Collaboration among educational institutions 

Book Reviews 

can be defined as an ' active working partnership 
s u p p o r t e d  by some k i n d  of i n s t i t u t i o n a l  
agreement' based o n  formal agreement between 
two or more organisations. (M. W. Neil [ed], 
1989: Education of adults at a distance. Kogan page, 
London). This is a practice that is becoming 
increasingly important in distance education as 
information and communication technologies 
converge. According to the editors' introduction, 
inter-institutional collaboration is based on four 
conditions: first, the desire to make 'better or 
more extensive or new use of resources that are 
available within one or more communities; and 
the opportunity to improve 'the quality of 
learning materials . . . .  [to increase] educational 
opportunities for a wider student population, 
and [to ensure] . . .  the relevance of studies to 
student needs'; third, the need to respond to 
political pressures of various kinds; and the 
perceived need to guide or initiate changes of 
various kinds in particular societies. 

Of particular interest to tertiary educational 
institutions considering collaborative projects is 
the chapter by Jocelyn Calvert, Terry Evans and 
Bruce King on the construction of a Master of 
Distance Education degree between Deakin 
University in Geelong and the University of 
South Australia in Adelaide. The authors take 
the reader through what was obviously a 
difficult and time-consuming process that 
required considerable goodwill on the part of 
both universities. The importance of goodwill 
and mutual trust cannot be underestimated in 
the development of successful collaborative 
ventures such as this; in fact the absence of 
mutual trust and goodwill is likely to doom any 
such undertaking from the start. The question 
may arise in the m i n d s  of some r e a d e r s ,  
however, whether t h i s  sort of educational 
programme could be made even stronger by the 
inclusion of other contributing universities? 
Perhaps the complexities outlined here should 
preclude suchthoughts. 

Journal of Distance Learning, Vol1, No. 1, 1995 (c) Distance Education Association of New Zealand 

43 



Chapters on the 'rise and fall' of the University 
of Mid-America by Donald R McNeil and the 
Northern Ontario project, Contact North, by 
Marion Croft provid� the reader with insights 
into the difficulties of developing teaching 
ar r a n g e m e n t s  a m o n g  multiple t e r t i a r y  
educational institutions, each of which was 
established to be autonomous. The chapter on 
Contact North outlines a particularly complex 
c o l l a b o r a t i v e  a r r an g e m e n t  involving 
Laurentian, Lakehead, Nippissing and Algoma 
Universities and Cambrian, Confederation, 
Canadore and Sault Colleges in four widely 
separated locations; namely Sudbury, Thunder 
Bay, North Bay and Sault Ste Marie. In addition 
to these institutions these are also participating 
colleges in Timmins and in Hearst The need to 
provide educational opportunities for people in 
the northern ninety percent of Ontario which is 
inhibited by only ten percent of that province's 
population, underlines the importance of this 
sort of interinstitutional collaboration but, at the 
same time, the difficulty in doing so. While 
c o l l a b o r a t i o n  b e t w e e n  two educational 
institutions requires careful planning and 
c o n s i d e r a b l e  g o o d w i l l  on both sides; 
collaboration among a variety of different types 
of institutions located over a wide area increases 
the complexity. 

Many tertiary educational institutions today in 
both developed and developing countries are 
either involved in or considering initiating 
collaborative arrangements with other colleges 
or univer sities. Collaboration in Distance 
Education is likely to be of considerable interest 
to educational administrators preparing to 
develop collaborative teaching and learning, as 
well as to teachers and learners themselves. 
Coilaboration between educational institutions 
has not been the subject of much attention in 
the research literature until now, but this is likely 
to change as universities, polytechnics and 
community colleges consider their futures. It is 
particularly significant that collaboration 
between institutions is considered in the context 
of distance education, although this volume 
d e s e r v e s  a w i d e r  a u d i e n c e  than the one 
suggested in its title. As more universities and 
p o l y t e c h n i c s  c o n s i d e r  collaborative 

arrangements in future, the case studies outlined 
in this volume should find a place in the 
literature of Educational Administration and, in 
so far as they relate to the provision of increased 
educational opportunities, in the Sociology of 
Education. I would like to have seen more in 
this collection pn t h e  application of new 
interactive technologies t o  facilitate t h e  
c o l l a b o r a t i v e  p r o c e s s ,  a s  I a m  s u r e  t h a t  
educational administrators will, in many cases, 
consider this to be the means by which future 
collaborative arrangements will be developed. 

Moran and Mugridge have brought together a 
very valuable collection of case studies that 
effectively pioneers a new topic of great 
significance. The concept of collaboration 
among u n i v e r s i t i e s ,  p o l y t e c h n i c s  and 
community �alleges challenges notions of 
institutional autonomy and even the future of 
national educational systems. Collaboration 
among educational institutions can take an 
almost infinite number of forms and it is 
impossible to capture all of these in a single 
volume. Nevertheless, I would like to have read 
more about international collaboration as, in the 
late twentieth century, inter-institutional 
arrangements increasingly extend well beyond 
regional and national frontiers Moran and 
Mugridge have, h o w e v e r, effectively 
summarised the main trends in collaboration in 
distance education: the accommodation of 
institutional c u l t u r e s .  the building of 
relationships built on trust and the perception 
of mutual benefits while drawing attention to 
the importance of the role of governments in the 
development of such arrangements. As the 
editors point out in their final chapter, the 
challenge for today ' s  distance education 
institutions is to build on existing expertise and 
experience, so that they can lead the rest of 
higher education into a new era. 

Ken Stevens 
Victoria University of Wellington 

Journal of Distance Learning, Vall, No. 1, 1995 (c) Distance Education Association of New Zealand 

44 



DESMOND KEEGAN (editor), 1993: Theoretical 
p r inciples of distance ed ucation. Routledge, 
London and New York, 272pp. , NZ$179. 95 

It has always been difficult to theorise about 
d i s t a n c e  e d u c a t i o n  and with recent 
developments in communications technology 
and the adoption of distance education by 
institutions that until recently were teaching 
only in traditional face-to-face mode, this is an 
area of education that is changing rapidly. A 
book on the theoretical principles of distance 
e d u c a t i o n ,  in t h i s  case a collection of 
i n t e r n a t i o n a l  essays edited by Desmond 
Keegan, the general editor of the new Routledge 
series in distance education, will undoubtedly 
become an important collection likely to be 
referred to often by future writers of books, 
journal articles and conference papers. A 
particularly useful feature of this collection is 
its breadth, ranging from the philosophical to 
the technological. As distance educators come 
from such a wide variety of intellectual and 
professional backgrounds, the breadth of the 
theoretical perspectives presented here is a 
valuable aspect of the publication. 

Keegan notes in his introduction, that a theory 
of distance education is something which can 
eventually be reduced to a phrase, a sentence or 
a paragraph, and which can provide the 
touchstone against which decisions about 
distance education can be taken with confidence. 
It subsumes all practical research and provides 
the underpinnings for decision making'. An 
attractive feature of this book is the way in which 
the variety of theories of distance education have 
been organised by the editor, making it likely that 
this collection will become required reading for 
many future students. Theoretical Principles of 
Distance Education is organised in five parts: 
didactic, academic, analytic, philosophical and 
technological, each of which is intended to 
provide the reader with an introduction to the 
'underpinnings' of an aspect of the theory of 
distance education. Each of these five theoretical 
areas which underpin distance education 
contains three essays, most of which are drawn 
from a variety of international sources, which 
collectively provide a very comprehensive 
overview of this rapidly changing field of 

education. The first three essays on the didactic 
underpinnings of distance education, by Otto 
Peters, Michael Moore and Randy Garrison, 
cover basic concepts of teaching, learning, 
interaction, feedback and communication These 
introductory chapters are followed by several 
chapters on the 'academic underpinnings', 
particularly the development of distance 
education courses. Chere Gibson's chapter 

'Towards a broader c o n c e ptualiza t i o n  of 
distance education', provides an introduction to 
ecological systems theory, while Louise Suave's 
contribution 'What's behind the development 
of a c o u r s e  on t h e  c o n c e p t  of d i s t a n c e  
education?' is a succinct introduction to the 
distance education as well as to the principles 
of developing a course to be taught in this mode. 
These twq contributions approach distance 
education in different ways and illustrate the 
range of approaches that can be taken by 
practitioners. 

It is particularly appropriate that Theoretical 
Principles of Distance Education has been 
published at a time when distance education is 
challenging national educational boundaries, 
assisted by the convergence of information and 
communication technologies. As distance 
education increasingly becomes part of the 
organisation of institutions that have not in the 
past provided courses at a distance, this book is 
likely to have an important educative role in 
explaining the f o u n d a t i o n s  of d i s t a n c e  
education t o  educational administrators and 
policy makers. The o rganisation of t h e s e  
theoretical chapters allows the reader t o  work 
selectively through them. I will be suggesting 
that my students begin with the chapter by the 
editor, Desmond Keegan, on the 'Reintegration 
of the teaching acts', even though it appears as 
chapter seven in this collection. In this chapter 
Keegan outlines the role of the teacher, student 
and content in distance education and provides 
a useful framework for their analysis. 

As many of the readers of Theoretical Principles 
of Distance Education likely to be graduate 
students, studying distance education from a 
variety of professional backgrounds the scope 
of this collection will likely provide them with 

Journal of Distance Learning, Vol1, No. 1, 1995 (c) Distance Education Association of New Zealand 

45 



material that will link distance education with 
their past and future career orientations. Papers 
by Tony Bates on 'Theory and Practice in the use 
of technology in distance education', and by Gary 
Boyd on 'A theory of distance education for the 
cyberspace era' , are likely to be of interest to 
virtually all students of distance education 
t o d a y, a s  w e i l  a s  t o  i n s t i t u t i o n s  that are 
considering developing distance education 
within their traditional face-to-face teaching 
frameworks. 

The range of theories of distance education 
outlined by the authors of the fifteen chapters 
in this collection is very impressive. Michael 
Moore's theory of transactional distance sets out 
a u s e f u l  f r a m e w o r k  f o r  s t r u c t u r i n g  the 
instructional process in distance education and 
contains some insights into the selection and the 
application of communications media. I found 
the· section of this chapter on the place of the 
teleconference in distance education particularly 
useful. This is an aspect of distance education 
t h a t  e v e n  t h e  n e o p h y t e  will likely have 
experienced before reading this book and 
Moore's chapter is appropriately located early 
in this collection to provide an introduction to 
and interesting explanation of an increasingly 
popular distance education practice. 

The chapter by O t t o  P e t e rs on distance 
education in a post i n d u s t r i a l  s o c i e t y  i s  
particularly relevant t o  the direction o f  national 
education systems at the present time. Peters, a 
prominent German educationalist and a leading 
theoretician of distance education, concludes his 
essay with three macro perspectives. His outline 
of the Lebenswelt perspective, the ecology 
perspective and the concept of 'instructional 
design', provides a way of contextualising 
distance education as well as for understanding 
past, present and future directions of the 
education of students at a distance. 

I have been looking for a collection of theoretical 
essays like this for several years to provide my 
masters students, in distance education with a 
comprehensive overview of the field. Although 
distance edw£ation his changed considerably 
over the last decade, many of the essays in this 
collection will be current for years to come. As 
Keegan points out in his introduction, 'there is 
nothing as practical as a good theory'. Theoretical 
Principles of Distance Education is valuable 
contribution to educational scholarship and, in 
spite of its price, deserves a place in the library 
of all distance educators. 

Ken Stevens 
Victoria University of Wellington 

Journal of Distance Learning, Vall, No.1, 1995 (c) Distance Education Association of New Zealand 

46