STRIDE performs the following activities:

• Offers four academic programmes – Ph.D. in Distance Education, M. Phil. in Distance Education, M.A. (Distance Education) and Post Graduate Diploma in E-Learning (PGDEL) - to develop human resources in distance education within India, and in Commonwealth and other developing countries.
• Organizes institutional, regional, national and international training programmes for academic, non-academic, and other professionals working in distance and open education institutions.
• Develops training packages and other resource materials for training of various categories of functionaries working in the distance education system.
• Conducts and supports research and programme evaluation in distance and open education for improving the quality of distance education and for system development.
• Provides national and international consultancy services on distance education and training for capacity building and systems development in government, non-government, and private institutions/organisations.
• Acts as an information resource center for open and distance education in the country and abroad including publication of training resources on open learning.
• Publishes internationally refereed Indian Journal of open Learning to disseminate information about theory practice and research in open and distance education.
• Offers a professional development programme (ACT Online) for academic capacity building activities of academic counsellors of IGNOU and other institutions.