Author: Jaakko Wallenius

Name of the Thesis: A telecommunications company as a part of the delivery chain of open and distance learning services

Date: 23.2.1998

Number of pages: 95

Department of Electrical and Communications Engineering

Professorship: Communications Code: S-72

Supervisor: Professor Seppo J. Halme

Instructor:Tero Kauppinen, MSc, Helsinki Telephone Corporation

The number of open and distance learning (ODL) services is increasing constantly. Demand is originated to the benefits of ODL, which includes independence from time and place, new learning methods and presumed cost effectiveness for large numbers of learners. New learning environments for ODL are more frequently built on Internet and WWW technologies. Internet and WWW are the fastest growing field of educational technology. Telecommunications companies are interested in ODL as it can also he viewed as a multimedia service.

New interactive and cooperative learning methods and abandoning the traditional classroom teaching paradigm are the main challenges for ODL development.

The Internet and WWW have created new opportunities for technology assisted learning. High performance networks and multicast technology can create opportunities to support learning process with new methods like video based lectures delivered by using Internet. The estimated annual growth of Internet traffic is exponential. Within some time the IP traffic will equal the traffic in traditional circuit switched voice traffic. Evidently IP traffic will supersede the traditional telephony creating challenges for developing new models for telecommunications business.

Strategies for ODL and multimedia services are difficult to analyze because all possible future scenarios include high degrees of uncertainty. Digital interactive services can be analyzed by using a DIS-model, which consists of static core processes and dynamically changing strategic roles.

DIS analysis of ODL services creates four different scenarios based on different relations between infrastructure and content provision. A scenario where services are increasingly based on IP-technology seems probable. The content is likely to be created by specialized providers. The share of telecommunications company in DIS services is likely to grow towards content packaging and market making.