Grey Literature : Plausible Applications for Distance Education Practices

Abstract

With distance education among the most dynamic elements in post-secondary education today and with changes in emerging instruction technologies breaking frontiers, new interpretations of copyright and creative site licensing of information, grey literature has an equally new potential for use in these structures. The "Innovation Diffusion" common in distance education is a parallel structure to developments in electronic publishing and alternative ways to distribute and treat grey literature. Connectivity remains the major challenge as distance education increasingly is handled over the network and interactive video. Instructors participating in distance education courses are seeking materials and resources that they can ascertain will be available to their students via course supported software and a host of browsers with few restrictions. Grey literature, due to its wide scope and definition, and oftentimes unrestricted access, lends to significant use in this arena. The mutual benefit to the author/editor/compiler and to the faculty and students as well as the host institution and that library, may have some lasting impact in how distance education can transition from a dependent extension of traditional classroom based education environments to a widely independent distributor of information. This paper explores different methods of how grey literature can be more widely utilized in such applications and what challenges there are to promote grey literature in what appears to be both asynchronous as well as synchronous environments.Includes : Conference preprintXAInternationa