THE CATTID’S APPROACH TO DESIGN ASYNCHRONOUS DISTANCE INSTRUCTION FOR WEB-BASED LEARNING Carlo Maria Medaglia Department of Sociology and Communication University of Rome ”La Sapienza” Via Salaria 113 - 00198 Roma, Italy email: medaglia@kerdos.it Ugo Biader Ceipidor Department of Sociology and Communication University of Rome ”La Sapienza” Via Salaria 113 - 00198 Roma, Italy email: ugo.biader@cattid.uniroma1.it Alfredo Imbellone Department of Sociology and Communication University of Rome ”La Sapienza” Via Salaria 113 - 00198 Roma, Italy email: imbellone@cattid.uniroma1.it Abstract The main objective of this paper is to present the structure of CATTID (Centro per le Applicazioni della Televisione e delle Tecniche di Istruzione a Distanza – Centre for television applications and distance learning techniques). The Centre was created in the seventies, to enable the distribution of educational materials using television. During the last decade it has developed a blended learning approach integrating television, e-learning and traditional didactic methods. Nowdays, thanks to the new opportunities Italian university is facing, CATTID is studying the possibility of realizing some fully on-line high education degrees. We will focus on CATTID facilities and in its own methodology for web-based distance education. Starting from an introduction on the state of the art of asynchronous and synchronous teaching-learning environments, we will analyse the peculiarity of CATTID’s learning solution, passing through a detailed description of the production process regarding on line courses. Finally, we document the benefits which have resulted from the application of our approach to training in e-learning. Keywords Web-based Education (WBE), Web-based Methods and Tools in Traditional and Distance Education, Asynchronous learning solution, budget evaluation for web-based learning solution. 1. Introduction Before we consider the structure of our centre and its facilities, it is worth addressing why a university would wish in the first place to engage in web-based learning. In order to address that question we need to analyse to the basic functions and purposes of a university as an organisation and as an educational institution. The basic purpose of a university is to promote and advance scholarship in all its various aspects. The functions of a university have been identified as anything which promotes its purpose and, in particular, any action which: supports the mission of the university, enables a beneficial initiative to be advanced, helps the University to respond to external demands, and responds beneficially to its stakeholders: government, funders community, students, employers, etc. The use of web based learning offers a number of benefits to universities; there are disadvantages as well, but first let us look at the attractions. Web based learning allows the university to respond to the demands of its stakeholders and in particular to the expectations of the government and of the community to provide greater access to higher education by those students who are otherwise hindered from entering, due to constraints of time and space. It also allows the university to deeply access different categories of students and to explore new catchments. It thus allows the university to accept more students and this will generally mean an increased income. Such categories are mainly: workers, disables, aged people, emigrated persons, foreign students. Furthermore web based learning can face with success two of the main plagues that afflict Italian high education system: the overcrowding of basic courses lessons and the high percentage of students abandoning university in the first years. Web based learning can be considered one of the few solutions to these problems which does not restrict the access to high studies. Although in virtually every university there are many examples of staff taking advantage of web based learning, not all universities engage in web based learning as part of the institution’s strategy. In many cases, the innovators are developing their approach to learning and teaching 416-197 261