The Growing Importance of Support for Learners and Faculty in Online Distance Education

Due to the complexity of the development and implementation of online distance learning and its pedagogical opportunities and challenges, the support for learners and faculty gains added importance. A difference is made between support measures in the framework of the teaching/learning process and on an administrative-institutional level. Special emphasis is placed on the higher education context. Often a fundamental change to the service culture and to faculty's conceptions of themselves is necessary in the development of online education. In contrast to traditional classroom education it will be shown in this chapter that the importance of support is increased in three ways.