Can e-learning help to attract new types of student?
Collis and De Boer while giving educational reasons for their implementation (a consistent educational environment for students and best practice examples for staff) also imply that the initial decision was taken in response to a need to attract more students (p.333). This is a pattern currently being followed at most universities which seek to extend the market for courses that they already run in F2F* mode. E-learning systems with their seemingly easy-to-use communication and delivery methods can be used to offer courses to students: • living outside the region or even the country. • living locally but who have difficulty attending for reasons of disability, childcare commitments or working hours (even full-time undergraduates are increasingly constrained by employment timetables). • wanting to take vocational courses in their workplace (work-based and lifelong learning). The NHS, which provides a very large source of funding for UK Higher education, is promoting work-based flexible
