Transforming content development in the era of distance and e-learning in the University of the Philippines Open University

Carmelita A Orias
University of the Philippines Open University
Los Baños, the Philippines

One of the mandates of the University of the Philippines Open University (UPOU) is to deliver quality distance education courses and materials to students nationwide and worldwide. Delivering these materials means making instructional packages more accessible to the students.

In UPOU’s 20 years of existence, one of the main sources for the student learning process is the learning materials and packages they receive every semester. In the early years, these included the course module (the main source of students’ learning), a Reader (for some courses) and a book supplement (for wrap-around modules). In 2004, UPOU started its transition to becoming fully online, with some of the modules being transformed into electronic format/pdf and uploaded on the course site of the programme. Today, UPOU is venturing into interactive materials, MOOCs and OER.

This paper presents the evolution of UPOU materials from print to electronic, and how this affects the students’ learning process. It considers the changes in the content development approach in the era of open and distance e-learning (ODeL), in terms of policies, course writing, instructional design, capacity-building and training.