Distance learning: answering learners' needs through the human face of technology The example of the INteractive E-learning System platform (INES)

The purpose of this article is to report on ten years' experience of open and distance learning and to underline the fact that, though open and distance learning clearly has a role to play in lifelong learning, it is not limited to this area. People choose open and distance learning in order to be able to learn at their own pace, where they want, when they want. Thus it helps in combining the requirements and constraints of work, personal life, family life and studies. It is in these advantages rather than in the mere fact of being able to learn remotely that the real benefits lie. Open and distance learning can offer the personalised learning plans that individual students seek, and it can do this throughout the regions, benefiting from economies of scale in the design of courses and in the production of materials, and also in administrative management. Open and distance learning is able to offer life-long learning activities not only to the professional world but also in the fields of general and popular education. Keeping in mind these guidelines, it will be possible to formulate a policy that will further the setting up of a rich and powerful system. The example of the UPJV's (Universite de Picardie Jules Verne) involvement in open and distance learning will be used to argue and illustrate our case, showing an approach to the visualisation of education aimed at clearing the fog of 'obscurantism': the new relationship to time and distance, and the interplay with the new technologies