Flexibility beyond time and place: stretching the opening the course

The field of education is changing, as the world is changing. Traditional and distance universities are in the process of providing quality education for rapidly diversifying student cohorts (Middlehurst, 2003). This change process is multi-faceted: broader and more diverse students, changing roles of instructors, more-flexible curricula, new delivery methods, new contacts between universities and other partners, and the globalization of higher education (Guri-Rosenblit, 1998). Bates (2001) argues that a mix of oncampus and flexible learning is an ideal mode of delivery for many of the new types of learners. He estimates that the lifelong learning market for formal university and college courses in knowledge-based economies is at least as great as the market for students leaving high school