Technological advancement and its impact on open and distance learning

The advances in Information and Communication Technology is rapidly changing the social and economic conditions across the globe and resulting in great improvement in the education sector. Distance Education is taking a new dimension in the history of education in India. Distance education programmes are the mode of education for various professional and non-professional courses. Distance Learning embraces minimal physical contact between teacher and student and hence emphasizes more on e-communication. Adoption of e-learning in Distance Education programmes is a robust indicator of change in teaching and learning strategies. Availability of proper infrastructure will add a new momentum to e-Learning in India. Besides role of library and library professionals in distance education has to be understood. To improve distance education it is therefore necessary to give more attention to student support services like access to libraries and information.