Criteria for evaluating the social capital of the NWU distance learning community

Abstract

Discussions of dialogue have been at the heart of Distance Learning (well known in the theories of Borge, Holmberg and Moore). This theoretical article focuses on formulating criteria for evaluating the social capital of a particular Distance Learning community, at the North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus (NWU), and attempts to put forward specific thoughts regarding the importance of dialogue as a key pedagogical method within the Distance Learning setting at NWU through which social capital is being shaped. A number of educationalists recently re-examined the position that dialogue occupies in the Distance Learning setting. Distance Learning is to facilitate through a distance; these students and lecturers are divided physically in occasion and space. Consequently, Distance Learning students and lecturers lack the communal physical attendance that is imperative for communication. In Distance Learning, many communication pathways are imprecise. This article specifically deals with the essentially dialogic nature of the educational dialogue in Distance Learning, and the need to establish criteria for evaluating the social capital of a particular Distance Learning community.