During 2024, pre-doctoral researcher Selin Celibkas, led by Professor Elif Toprak of Anadolu University, has been collecting quantitative and qualitative data on the internationalisation policies and practices of European open and distance learning universities during a ten-month stay at the National University of Distance Education (UNED), funded by The Scientific and Technological Research Council of Türkiye (TUBITAK ), with Professor Ángeles Sánchez-Elvira Paniagua, Director of the CUED, as research supervisor during her stay.
During the data collection, websites, reports, and documents from the internationalisation units of the main European distance learning universities, members of the European Association of Distance Teaching Universities (EADTU), and literature relevant to the topic were consulted.
In a second phase, Selin Celikbas contacted the heads of internationalisation at these universities to conduct in-depth face-to-face interviews (in the case of UNED) and online via videoconference. In this phase, the Director of CUED suggested and supported the establishment of the necessary contacts, also proposing to extend the field of analysis to open and distance universities belonging to the Ibero-American Association of Higher Distance Education (AIESAD) and other relevant associations such as CALED (Latin American and Caribbean Institute for Quality in Distance Education) of Ecuador or ABED (Brazilian Association of Distance Education), as well as the South African Distance University, UNISA, through its UNESCO Chair in Open Distance Education.
In this way, the initial objective of the research has been extended. A comparison can be made to find similarities and differences between open and distance universities regarding their current internationalisation policies and strategies.
A total of thirteen EADTU member universities, seven institutions and organisations from Latin America and the Caribbean and UNISA from South Africa, as well as the executive directors of EADTU (George Ubachs) and AIESAD (Constanza Abadía) have participated in the interviews.
Preliminary data from the research was presented at the EADTU Annual Conference in Cyprus and is still under analysis. The presentation was made by Ángeles Sánchez-Elvira Paniagua, who was present at the conference.
The abstract and presentation can be accessed via the following link:
The research’s final results, which will culminate in Selin Celikbas’s doctoral thesis, will be presented, among other venues, at the EADTU Conference 2025 in Hägen, organised by FernUniversität.
