of distance education have almost always existed in 'face-to-face' programmes, while educators involved in distance education are increasingly recognizing the importance of different types of face-to-face education as structured elements of their programmes. This renders rigid distinctions between the two forms of delivery meaningless.
To deal with the growing combination of distance and face-to-face educational methods in many programmes, the notion of a continuum of educational provision has emerged in some circles. This continuum has, as one of its imaginary poles, provision only at a distance, while at the other end of the continuum falls provision that is solely face-to-face. The reality is that all educational provision exists somewhere on this continuum but cannot be placed strictly at either pole. Re-conceptualizing methods of educational provision as existing somewhere on this imaginary continuum has the result that certain methods of provision are no longer chosen to the exclusion of others, depending on whether they are 'distance' or 'face-to-face' educational opportunities. Rather, educational providers, when constructing educational courses, are able to choose, from a wide variety, those methods that are most appropriate for the context in which they will be providing learning opportunities.
Another major advantage of this 'blurring' is that 'distance educators' and 'face to-face educators' can turn from meaningless debates about the relative virtues of particular methods of educational provision, to consideration of the nature of learning and the educational value of a course's structure and content. Educators often find it necessary to equate particular methods of education with good quality education, in an effort to market the programmes they are offering and give them added status over programmes using different methods of provision. The notion of this continuum is free of such premature and unnecessary judgements about quality.
It needs to be made clear that no method of educational provision is intrinsically better than another; rather, the appropriateness of a particular method or combination of methods selected is determined entirely by the context in which they are to be used and the educational needs they are intended to fulfil. This conceptual shift is vital in changing the structure of the higher educational system. In particular, it will allow for greater flexibility and open up possibilities of collaboration, which are vital to an improvement in educational quality and in the cost-effectiveness of educational provision.
A shift to resource-based learning
A logical consequence of the collapse of simplistic distinctions between contact and distance education, together with the increasingly exciting variety of media available and decline in production and reception costs of these media, has been the emergence of resource-based learning. The concept is not new; it is based on the principle that educators should select, from the full range of educational provision, those resources and methods most appropriate to the context in
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