As universities expand year-on-year, many institutions are making greater use of online "distance learning" courses to facilitate the needs of a wider range of students.

Higher education institutions across the UK have been developing their roster of online degree options and improving the technological platforms on which they are delivered, to aid students whose circumstances do not suit a conventional "on-campus" degree.

Dr Hamish Macleod, senior lecturer in Education Technology at the University of Edinburgh, said: “This has certainly become a trend. These days, various pressures in culture and society are meaning that people need to study at a time that suits them, and the distance learning infrastructure helps to flush out complications.”

Online degrees in disciplines as varied as management, medicine, law and education are now being offered over a range of different media.

This allows students to tailor their study experience to fit around their work and family commitments, and enables international students to receive a qualification without leaving their home country.

Distance learning courses are presented in a wide range of forms, with a varying degree of interaction with university staff.

Some courses may feature online lecturing or discussion, whereas others simply provide students with access to an online portal through which they can access course materials.

Dr Macleod added: “We don’t just take a course and put it online, that doesn’t cut it.

“For example, we offer a distance learning course in e-learning, and we aim to make it dynamic with the use of video-conferencing and streaming real-time meetings. We also interact with students on Second Life, an online virtual world.

"We realise the importance of community to our students,” he said.

The University of London (UOL), a pioneer of distance learning, has been offering degrees through its "external system" for over 150 years, and famously counted Nelson Mandela as a student during his incarceration.

Speaking to The Journal, Andrew Bollington, chief operating officer of UOL’s external system, said: “For us, distance learning is nothing new, but the last 10 years have made so much more possible.

“Recently, UOL’s approach has been to take the most popular on-campus courses and make them available online," Mr Bollington said, "we now have tens of thousands of students, studying over 100 different online programs, across 199 different countries.”

Although university degrees achieved online are academically identical to those achieved on-campus, there is an inevitable difference between the two in terms of the student experience.

According to Mr Bollington the experience can be good or bad, depending on the context.

“There is no unifying characteristic of all distance learners, but on the whole, they don’t lose out on the transferable skills gained through a conventional degree.

“Because these students are studying in their own time, they tend to be very disciplined learners, very engaged in their studies and focused on developing their learning skills.

“Obviously, they aren’t able to enjoy the on-campus benefits that most students can, but for some people, the idea of stopping their life for a university course is just not possible.”

“Most of our external applicants are international students. The majority of those are in Hong Kong, Singapore and Trinidad, but we also have students in countries like North Korea, where there might be few other opportunities open to students. We also have between five and six thousand students in the UK.”

Regarding the potential for fraud, Mr Bollington said: “We work closely with the British Council, and we have 550 exam centres and 70 independent teaching centres across the world, so we can keep a close eye on the authenticity of our students, and ensure that the standard of students being awarded distance learning degrees is equal to that of conventional students.”

The efforts being made to improve the content of such courses—as well as the development of the channels through which they are delivered—has not only benefited distance learners, but has also had knock-on benefits for students in conventional full-time higher education courses.

Erin Jackson, distance learning manager at the University of Edinburgh’s school of law, said: “It is not likely that either kind of degree will replace the other in the long run, because improvements to each go on to benefit the other.

“For example, many of the technologies developed for online teaching are then used to aid on-campus students, and some courses that were designed exclusively for distance learning, such as medical law and international public health law, could soon be offered through conventional teaching methods.

“We’re currently conducting research into the progress of our graduates after they receive their degree. We want to get a clearer picture of the sorts of paths that people with distance learning degrees are taking, and how much benefit our course is having to their continuing professional development.”

A possible advantage of having finished an online postgraduate degree is distance learners can find themselves better equipped to meet the challenges of their work environment.

Richard Davis, a graduate of the University of Edinburgh’s online master’s course in e-learning, said: “I work in a closely aligned area, on IT systems for libraries and archives, so understanding more about the nature of teaching and learning, both traditionally and in an online environment, seemed attractive to me.

“I was very pleased to find the course available, and at a well-respected institution such as Edinburgh.”

Mr Davis, a member of the first cohort of graduates from Edinburgh’s online e-learning program, found the course flexible enough to allow him to study according to his own timetable.

“I have work and family life to get on with, so it's great that I can fit bits in when convenient on weekends and evenings.

“I was able to have a semester off after my son was born in 2007.”