The opinions of students and faculty members about distance summer school

Distance education is an alternative for whom has different conditions and expectations has been growing rapidly and developing all over the world. It is required to make a new arrangement in order to utilize summer school more efficient and effective for students who want to take courses in summer schools. For the reason when it is considered to weather and several conditions summer school with open and distance learning that overcomes the place and time barriers can be thought as an opportunity for both students and faculty members. As a result of literature review, limited researches were found at abroad and just one were found in Turkey. Therefore, the project could be seen as an innovation in the field of open and distance learning. The purpose of the research is to determine opinions of students and faculty members about distance summer school. The sample of the research consists of 6 faculty members and 6 students having an experience about summer school and distance learning. Interview based qualitative method was used in the research and semi-structured interviews were conducted to determine opinions of participants. Content analyze method was applied to analyze data obtained from interviews of participants. In this research, opinions of students and faculty members regarding distance summer school were evaluated in the scope of superiorities, limitedness, practice and proposals. According to the results of the research, distance summer school has many superiorities not only for students but also for faculty members and institutions according to traditional summer school. It has been defined that distance summer school remains weak in terms of the interaction both students and faculty members separately and mutually. All findings obtained from students and faculty members opinions are described in detail under the relevant themes.