The Open University of Israel

The Open University of Israel (OUI) is a distance education institution with open admissions that offers academic studies to students throughout Israel. Its home-study method allows its students to pursue higher education whenever and wherever convenient. The OUI offers over 500 courses in life sciences, natural sciences, mathematics, computer science, social sciences, management, Jewish studies, education, humanities, psychology, communications, music and art, and more, and has about 38,000 students all over Israel and abroad. The OUI has traditionally taken advantage of existing technologies and has integrated state-of-the-art technology into its courses. For several years, the OUI has been integrating computer-mediated-communication (CMC) technologies into its course Web sites to improve its distance teaching. These new teaching methods expand and enrich the written textbooks that are the basis for teaching at the OUI. The incorporation of technological teaching methods is fully adapted to the written study materials that are prepared by experts in their fields. Below, we will present the OUI and its distance learning methods, which include the integration of the CMC technologies.