The Theory of Transactional Distance

Abstract

In this chapter, we will expand on the basic concepts of the TTD, and demonstrate how these concepts influence the behavior of organizational components that are present in a university. To do so, we will offer a hierarchical model of technology-based institutions of higher education that represent these organizational components. The model illustrates how instructional systems, as defined by the principal constructs of the TTD, relate to other components that are active in any technology-based institution of higher education. The hierarchical model has eight levels representing hardware, software, telecommunications, instructional, curricular, management, societal, and global components. This model is the key to understanding the critical functions of the professionals who work at each system level in most institutions. It illustrates how what they do is intertwined in a wide network of influences that eventually sets the stock of transactional distance as the ultimate outcome of the system for each individual learner.

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