M.E. Mutlu, Ö. Özöğüt Erorta, R. Yılmaz, “Design and Development of the E-Learning Services in the Open Education System in Turkey”, EADTU- Working Conference 2005 Towards Lisbon 2010: “Collaboration for Innovative Content in Lifelong Open and Flexible Learning”, Rome, 10-11 November 2005.

1. Design and Development of the
E-Learning Services
in the Open Education System in
Turkey
Assistant Prof. Dr. M. Emin Mutlu
Inst. Özlem Özöğüt Erorta
Inst. Ruşen Yılmaz
EADTU- Working Conference 2005
Towards Lisbon 2010: “Collaboration for Innovative Content in Lifelong Open and Flexible Learning”
Rome, 10-11 November 2005

2. Anadolu University Open Education System
Anadolu University Open Education
Faculty, possessing the Economics and
Business Administration programs, was
established in 1982 to perform distance
education in Turkey.
The demand for the open education
faculty where 29,000 students were
registered in the first year has gradually
increased and it has become a gigantic
institution having around 1,000,000
enrolled students and where more than
200,000 students are registered every year.

3. Anadolu University Open Education System
In 1993, distance education expanded and separated into
three faculties as Faculty of Business
Administration, Faculty of Economics, and Open
Education Faculty, and it was named as Anadolu University
Open Education System.
Open Education West Europe Programs were developed
in1997 in order to provide distance education services to
the Turkish citizens in the West European countries and its
head office was established in Cologne.
Anadolu University is a dual-mode university.

4. Anadolu University Open Education System
The basic instructional services at Anadolu University Open
Education System can be stated in three groups as student office
services provided by the head office and its affiliates, academic
facilitator services organized by the academic facilitation
coordinatorship, and face-to-face examination services
organized by the computer research and application center.
Units designing, developing and producing the distance education
materials are composed of the book design unit where the printed
materials are designed and developed, radio-television production
center where the TV programs are designed and developed, test
research unit where the exam questions are prepared, the
computer based education unit which is responsible for the
design, development and publishing of the instructional software.

5. Distance Learning Services in the
Open Education System
Anadolu University is in Eskişehir which is located in the
central part of Turkey. Its more than one million students are
living in various cities of Turkey having 81 cities. Students
enrolled in the Open Education system can use the office
services, academic facilitator services and exam services
in their home without leaving from their home.

6. Office Services
Offices responsible for the student
affaires have been established in the
Anadolu University Open Education
system in order to allow students
enrolled in Business Administration,
Economics and Open Education
Faculties to perform their affairs
without going to the center.
As of 2005, 88 offices in 80 cities and in Lefkoşa (Nicosia ) and
Cologne serve to the Open Education Faculty students. More than
400 people work in the head office and the offices in the cities.

7. Face-to-face Academic Facilitator Services
Academic facilitator service is one of the most important
elements of the Open Education System. The basic aim of this
service which is supported by many universities in Turkey is to
get the instructors specialized in their subject areas and students
together, and promote interaction to encourage better learning.
Academic facilitator services are given
in evenings or at week ends by more
than 600 instructors in the university
campuses in 67 centers where
university rectorships exist.

8. Examination Services
Open education faculty exams are held on the same
dates and in the same hours in the whole country.
Anadolu University Computer Research and
Application Center (CRAC) is responsible for the
execution of the examinations without any problem.
The examinations are conducted three
times a year using more than 5,000
buildings and more than 50,000 rooms
each time. More than 250,000 people are
charged in every examination period.

9. Development of the Distance Learning
Materials in the Open Education System
The coursebooks, TV programs, exam
questions and the instructional software that
will be delivered to the students enrolled in
the Anadolu University Open Education
System are developed in the units of the
university specialized for these purposes.

10. Development of the Course Books
The course books are prepared in the way to
allow self-study, and they are pressed using the
most up-to-date instructional technology
methods and providing the basis for the
Internet and TV programs, and then
distributed to the students.
The number of books which were redesigned
and pressed in the Anadolu University Distance
Education system has exceeded 500. Around 5
million books are delivered to the students
every year. More than 1,000 subject area
professors write and edit the books.

11. Production of the TV Programs
All the radio and TV programs
are developed in the Open
Education Faculty Radio and
Television Production Center
and they are broadcast in the
national TRT channels (only the
exam preparation programs are
live broadcast ).
Nearly 200 experienced, specialized and
trained personnel work in the production
center.

12. Production of the TV Programs
Nearly 5,000 TV programs have been
developed since the establishment of the
Open Education Faculty. The TV
programs are broadcast 24 weeks per year,
37 hours per week, and 888 hours per
year. The programs are broadcast at least
twice in a year.
The radio programs are broadcast in TRT
Radio 1. The number of the broadcast
radio programs is 400.

13. Development of the Exam Questions
The questions asked in the Open Education exams are prepared by the Test
Research Unit. Every year, for each course, the subject specialists are asked
to prepare questions. Those questions are scientifically checked by another
subject area specialist after being technically controlled. When the scientific
editing of the questions is complete, they are edited by the subject writer
and they get approval for printing.
All the questions to be asked in the exam are
assessed and evaluated scientifically. It is
through this process that more than 20,000
questions are asked to students in the
examinations without any error.

14. Production of the Instructional Software
The Computer Based Education
Unit (CBEU) was found in 1989 in the
Anadolu University Open Education
Faculty to investigate and apply the
educational opportunities that stem
from the developments in the
computer technology and widely use
of the computers.
The design and publishing of the all
practices and the maintenance of the
published courses and the services
provided are achieved by the CBEU.

15. Production of the Instructional Software
Twenty-five specialists work full time in
the CBEU as instructional
designers, graphic artists and animation
specialists. Moreover, 25 students from
different majors at the Anadolu
University work half time in the CBEU
to perform jobs in relation to
voicing, graphics, animations and
scenario development.
More than 250 teaching personnel working in different departments
at the Anadolu University provides support in the instructional
software design and development process as subject area
specialists, editor, instructional designer, vocalization and animation
specialists.

16. Transformation of the Traditional Open Education
Services and Materials into the E-Learning Services
The learning efforts of the every student getting instruction via the
open education method in our country should be supported by
technology as much as possible without leaving them on their own for
studying. For this reason, the traditional products and services of the
Open Education Faculty are designed and developed parallel to the
developments in the Internet technology so as to be published in the
Internet.
A period where the instructional content is gradually digitized has
started in the Open Education system since 1999. The course
books, television programs, academic facilitator services, exam
questions, office services, computer aided instructional software are
transformed into products and services in the virtual environment such
as e-book, e-television, e-facilitator service, e-exam, office-web, and e-
practice respectively.

17. e-Book
The electronic book service was put into practice in the 2003-2004
academic year so that students have the chance to read them in the
Internet environment when they have not got the books yet. The
electronic books were delivered in PDF format in the mentioned
academic year but they were transformed into Flash Paper
technology in the 2004-2005 academic year so that students not
having the PDF reader could access them.
The name of the electronic book application has become e-book
when all the e-learning services have been combined in the e-
Learning Portal.

18. e-Book
The units in the PDF
format coming from the
Index Service, which is a
sub-unit of the Book
Design Unit, are
transferred into Flash
Paper and added into the
e-book section of the
course in the e-Learning
portal. 2,178 units for
173 courses are delivered
via the Internet
environment.
http://eogrenme.anadolu.edu.tr
http://eogrenme.aof.edu.tr

19. e-Television
E- Television is a service that gives the students the opportunity
to record the TV programs of the open education system
courses in their computers and watch them more than once.
The delivery of the television programs in the Internet was
started in the 2003-2004 academic year. This practice made
much more sense when developments in the fast Internet access
occurred in Turkey in 2004.

20. e-Television
More then 600 programs
belonging to 70 courses
are delivered in the e-
television which is in the
Open Education e-
Learning portal.
Each program lasts
around 20 minutes.
http://eogrenme.anadolu.edu.tr
http://eogrenme.aof.edu.tr

21. e-Practice
The main instructional material
in the Open Education
programs is the coursebook.
The students are responsible
for the information in the
books for the examinations.
Students need software that
can reinforce what they have
learned from the
books, increase their problem
solving skills and prepare them
for the exams more effectively.

22. e-Practice
The preparation of the Internet
based practice software involves
two processes as design and
production. Half of the total
project period is used for design
and the other half is used for
production. The contribution of
many experts is needed in every
step of the design and
production services.
In the 2005-2006 academic
year, 758 unit practice software
for 50 courses are presented to
the students in the Open
Education e-Learning Portal.
http://eogrenme.anadolu.edu.tr
http://eogrenme.aof.edu.tr

23. e-Exam
In the Open Education System, internet-based trial exams exist so
that students can prepare themselves for the exams and see their
real performance before the real exams. This practice started in
1999 and was named as ‘e-exam’ in the open education e-learning
portal.
For the e-exam practice, the CBEU cooperates with the Test
Research Unit. In the e-exam practice, more than 11,000 questions
for 123 courses are placed in the question bank and they are
updated every year. The practice receiving the highest demand in the
e-learning portal is the e-exam.

24. e-Exam
The examinations involve
questions randomly selected
from the question bank, and
the time period for the exam
also appears on the screen
which is exactly the same time
period given in the real exams.
Students can pass to the
evaluation section when they
finish the exam in the given
period. The correct answers of
the questions do not appear in
the evaluation part, but the
number of questions answered
by the students, the number of
correctly answered questions
and the students’ performance
for the units are listed.
http://eogrenme.anadolu.edu.tr
http://eogrenme.aof.edu.tr

25. e- Facilitator Service
 The e-practice software that is published in the Open
Education e-Learning Portal has an asynchronous academic
facilitator service.
 The facilitator service was started as a pilot project for 24
courses that have practice software in May of 2005.
 Each course has an academic facilitator and a moderator.
 Students send their questions by accessing the lists of the units
in the e-facilitator link and then they send their question after
choosing the related unit from the unit list. If their question
involves a formula, they send their question after placing them
in a file.

26. e- Facilitator Service
A student can access to
the questions asked by
the other students and
the answers given by the
facilitators. The
academic facilitator
service is performed by
the course editors.
This practice which was
started for 24 courses
will continue for 50
courses in the 2005-2006
academic year. http://eogrenme.anadolu.edu.tr
http://eogrenme.aof.edu.tr

27. Office-Web Service
The services used by the open education students via
the open education offices can be accessed by them via
the Internet. Using the Office-Web service provided by
the Computer Research and Application
Center, students can learn their exam results, see their
transcripts, learn the books they need to buy from the
offices, and make changes in their examination center
and identity information.

28. Publishing of the e-Learning Services
The Open Education e-Learning Portal is published from the CBEU
server center. Every year, information about the enrolled open education
students is loaded to the open education e-learning portal database and
students are given the chance to access the e-learning services just after
the registration using their Turkish Republic identity number.
The contents and services in the Open
Education e-learning portal are published
via three servers having 32 operators.
TTNET, which is a national Internet
network, is used in order to publish via the
Internet lines having bands of 34 Mbps.
The lines of ULAKNET, which is the
National Academic Internet Network of
the university and having 70 Mbps are also
used for this purpose.

29. Publishing of the e-Learning Services
 A technical support team is on duty in order to make the Open
Education e-learning Portal available for 24 hours, to maintain it
and back it up, and respond to students’ technical support
demands that come from them via e-mail or telephone.
 Today, 15% of the students enrolled in the open education use
the e-learning services regularly, and this ratio increases every year.
The studies conducted so far indicates that the final grades of the
students who used the e-learning services are 19% higher than the
ones who did not use them.

30. Conclusion
 Rapid changes in the Internet technologies has promoted the
creation of new opportunities in the field of distance
education, and has allowed the professors to give instruction
taking students’ individual differences in their learning styles and
capabilities into consideration.
 Redesigning the traditional elements of the Open Education
System in the Internet environment and the practice software that
allow the students to reinforce what they have learned enhance the
quality and efficiency of the learning environment presented to the
students.
 In order to provide the students with these services, an
organizational structure was created that allow the cooperation of
the Computer Based Education Unit and the other units to digitize
and publish the products and services of the units producing
instructional content in traditional environments.

31. For your questions
oozogut@anadolu.edu.tr