e-Taalim

The Canadian Institute of Distance Education Research – CIDER - is a research initiative coordinated from the Centre for Distance Education at Athabasca University - Canada’s Open University.  The CIDER Website is an online self-managed research community with a shared domain of interest in distance education research. Within this research community, members have the opportunity to engage in debates, explore research areas of interest, and disseminate research related to distance education.

In this way CIDER is a forum for online networking – amongst participants – academics, researchers, practitioners and Athabasca University alumni. By providing connections between people, ideas, publications, websites and research resources, CIDER aims to become a dynamic network and a central source for distance education research in Canada, continuously being shaped and re-shaped by its members.

CIDER ’s distance education research scope is broad, ranging from learning and teaching application, financial and issues of access, the strategic use of technology in distance education settings, and other factors that influence distance education in Canada.

CIDER has many speakers from across Canada. You may wish to attend their sessions through the Web site. Check back often, as this list of upcoming events will be expanded. Slides and the audiographic recording of all Past CIDER Sessions are available for downloading in the archive.

The basic premise of CIDER is that Distance Education research in Canada needs support in many ways – financially, methodologically, academically, and so forth. The aim of CIDER is to be part of a solution. As part of this support, we think the research community needs a virtual space to grow into. Good communities, though, are more focused than on ‘everything related to Distance Education’ – thus the CIDER Special Interest Groups (SIGs). This is a space for posting resources, suggestions and discussions relative to CIDER members’ research special interests