Computers & Education 50 (2008) 927–949 www.elsevier.com/locate/compedu 0360-1315/$ - see front matter  2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.compedu.2006.09.008 Provision of distance learning services over Interactive Digital TV with MHP José J. Pazos-Arias ¤ , Martín López-Nores, Jorge García-Duque, Rebeca P. Díaz-Redondo, Yolanda Blanco-Fernández, Manuel Ramos-Cabrer, Alberto Gil-Solla, Ana Fernández-Vilas Department of Telematics Engineering, University of Vigo, ETSE Telecomunicación, Campus Universitario s/n, 36310 Vigo, Spain Received 21 September 2006; accepted 27 September 2006 Abstract E-learning technologies have developed greatly in recent years, with considerable success. However, there is increasing evidence that web-based learning is not reaching the social sectors which are more reluctant to contact with the new tech- nologies, thus leading to inequalities in the access to education and knowledge in the Information Society. By hiding the intricacies of computers behind the familiarity of household equipment, Interactive Digital TV (IDTV) is considered to play a key role in addressing this problem, and the term t-learning has been recently coined to mean TV-based interactive learning. Despite several approaches to t-learning have been proposed, works are missing that conceive it as a whole, delimit its scope in comparison with web-based learning and analyze the inXuence of the normalization of IDTV as a services plat- form. This paper addresses these issues, and introduces a framework for the development and deployment of t-learning ser- vices that promotes interoperability and reuse while taking into account the characteristic features of the IDTV medium.  2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Keywords: Architectures for educational technology system; Authoring tools and methods; Distance education and telelearning; Interac- tive learning environments; Multimedia/hypermedia systems 1. Introduction Governments in developed countries have been interested in distance education for many years. This inter- est is now growing due to the inexorable advance towards a global economy, because education is commonly regarded as the best way to maintain a region’s competitiveness. Thus, in recent years, we have witnessed a great development of e-learning technologies, to the point that the use of the Internet as a medium to deliver * Corresponding author. Tel.: +34 986812186; fax: +34 986812116. E-mail address: jose@det.uvigo.es (J.J. Pazos-Arias).