Abstract:

The trend towards a complex knowledge society combined with dynamic economic development cannot be reversed. In order to remain attractive for the labor market, learners have to adopt new skills and should anticipate those developments. The result is an increased demand for part-time learning as well as distance learning combined with e-Learning. Under these circumstances, universities are also facing increasing competition for students. The quality of distance learning courses can be considered a competitive advantage; both to attract new students and to develop existing students into graduates. However, trends have only partly been established and evaluated. This poses challenges for universities.

The aim of the article is to describe the role of evaluations and assessments for the success of distance learning courses. Hereby the article focus on business studies in Germany.

The authors use a secondary data analysis to assess existing evaluations. Current trends will be extracted from the data analysis and summarized into an overall context using a trend map. The results of this work should help universities to align their current study programmes in terms of quality and trends. In addition, a development of the evaluation process may result.

Therefore, the article should answer the following research questions:
- What is the status quo of evaluations in Germany (with a special focus on distance learning courses)?
- Are there current challenges for the evaluation of distance learning courses that have not yet been taken into account?
- How can the quality of distance learning courses be improved?

Keywords:

Distance learning, digital learning, quality management, evaluation.