IDENTIFYING SPECIFIC QUALITY INDICATORS FOR DISTANCE EDUCATION: THE CASE OF COSTA RICAN UNED

Abstract

This article presents a way to identify "indicators" to be used  in enhancing the quality of distance universities as they meet the new social transformation produced, somehow, by effects of "globalization" and the progress of international communications. This situation has generated new challenges in our actual society, whose main feature has related to high competitiveness, based in the quality of its practice within this changing and complex environment. In this sense, universities play an important role in achieving this enhancement, offering a way to satisfy the demands profesional instruction, generating knowledge and developing critical thinking. Here distance universities face an additional challenge, namely, making an strategic use of technological advances in order to lead teaching innovations, based in the strenghts of its applications and the assessment of didactic media.