远程教育具体较优的成本 ─ 效益吗？ ─ 访远程教育经济学知名学者托马斯．赫尔斯曼博士

Does Distance Education Hold the Alleged Cost─Efficiency？─ An Interview with Dr. Thomas Hülsmann

一直以来，远程教育被认为是具有较优的成本─效益，并为广大的发展中国家用于扩大其国民接受教育机会的手段。但是，随着信息技术的发展以及教育需求的变化，在线学习等学习形成的涌现，远程教育的这种优势是否发生了变化，它还具备原来所拥有的成本─效益优势吗？带着这些问题，本刊记者特别专访了德国籍国际远程教育领域知名学者托马斯．赫尔斯曼博士。托马斯．赫尔斯曼（Thomas HÜlsmann）主要从事远程教育经济学研究，重点是开放与远程学习的成本─效益。早期，赫尔斯曼作为德国技术联合会的工作人员，在非洲的一些国家从事数学教学工作长达十多年，并于1994年在马达加斯加开发数学教材时转入远程教育领域。目前，他就职于德国奥登堡大学远程教育中心。赫尔斯曼多年来综合前人的研究成果，开创了自成体系的远程教育的成本─效益研究和实证研究方法，对欧洲多个国家的远程教育机构做了实证分析，取得了目前为止对远程教育成本─效益分析最出色的实证分析成果。

For a long time， it is thought that distance education has the alleged cost─efficiency. With the development of ICT， educational requirements， and online learning， does distance education still hold these advantages？With these questions， we interviewed Dr. Thomas Hülsmann.Dr. Thomas Hülsmann is one of the famous experts in the filed of open and distance education who study economics and policy. He is currently with the Center for Distance Education and is a member of the Arberitsstelle Fernstudienforschung， which is a joint venture of the School of Education and the Center for Distance Education at Carl won Ossietzky University of Oldenburg. His research interests include economics of distance education， cost─effectiveness of distance learning， policies for distance education， planning and evaluating systems of pen and distance learning. His ideas and models about cost─effectiveness analysis on distance education are cited by many researchers and used by many practitioners.