With technology fuelling a steady increase in distance learning, achieving consistent standards across the range of training available is an issue of growing importance.

The British Association of Open Learning aims to promote quality and best practice in open, flexible and distance learning and has developed a quality mark for organisations who wish to have the standard of their training materials, guidance and learner suppport recognised.

Achieving the quality mark requires training providers to sign up to the BAOL Customer Charter, which is based on the Business Excellence Model and requires the organisation to demonstrate its commitment to quality customer service and provision of relevant, clear information for the customer.

The BAOL site also contains extracts from a DfEE guide on setting up and running an effective learning centre, links to related research topics and a listing of virtual campuses.

For those wanting more detail, The International Centre for Distance Learning has a comprehensive library available online containing 11,000 abstracts of books, journal articles, research reports, conference papers and dissertations on the subject.