1986: Establishment of a Division of Distance Education (DDE) at IGNOU. |
| 1987: Launch of a Diploma in Distance Education programme by IGNOU. |
| 1989: 217 students of DDE were awarded diplomas at the first Convocation of IGNOU held in February. |
| 1993: Masters of Arts in Distance Education (MADE) programme was launched by IGNOU. IGNOU was designated as Centre of Excellence for Training in DE by COL. The Diploma in Distance Education programme was upgraded to a postgraduate diploma. |
| 1994: At the Commonwealth Heads of Governments meeting (CHOGM) held at Cyprus, the COL announced The Rajiv Gandhi Fellowship (RGF) Scheme for foreign students to take up IGNOU programmes (particularly PGDDE and MADE). |
| 1995: The first revision of the PGDDE and MADE courses was completed. A national workshop on development of question banks and test items was organised. The first offer of IGNOU-RGF-COL scheme of PGDDE and MADE programme was made in 19 countries. |
| 1997-98: STRIDE provided consultancy services to NIE, Bhutan in 1997-98, the Indian Army in 1997-98, and Department of Personnel and Training, Government of India in 1998-2000. Attachment programmes were introduced in 1998, with faculty members from the Open University of Sri Lanka being attached to STRIDE for training in DE methodologies. |
| 1999: Faculty members from Bangladesh Open University and from Seychelles were attached to STRIDE for research and training. Meeting of heads of staff development and training of open universities was held in March. The first round table on assignments (as part of a series of round tables on various themes of DE) was organised at BRAOU, and subsequently on media at YCMOU and on SLM at NSOU. STRIDE provided consultancy to International Institute for Capacity Building in Africa (IICBA) in September. |
| 2000: The first series of academic counselling workshops for IGNOU PGDDE students of Ethiopia and Liberia organised. Second revision of the PGDDE and MADE courses was completed in October, under a project partly funded by COL in order to internationalize the courseware for the students of the Commonwealth countries. The second offer of IGNOU-RGF-COL scheme of PGDDE and MADE was made in another 10 countries. |
| 2001: A national workshop in Research on DE was organised in March. Workshop on E-Learning for in-house faculty of IGNOU was organised in July. The first Refresher Programme (on Distance Science Teaching) was organised by IGNOU (STRIDE-SOS-DEC) which subsequently led to conduct of such programmes in future. |
| 2002: RGF-COL workshop for academic counsellors of the PGDDE programme was held at New Delhi in March. The first interactive multimedia workshop, as a part of the series of subsequent such workshops, was organised for the teachers of IGNOU. This was subsequently taken up as a series by the Inter-University Consortium in 2004-05 for SAARC, Commonwealth countries, and Indian OUs and DEIs. |
| 2003: IGNOU PGDDE programme was offered through IICBA in Ghana . A national workshop on Web-CT and E-learning was held in October. RGF-COL workshop for counsellors of MADE programme was held at New Delhi in November. Refresher programmes in ‘Distance Teacher Education’ and ‘Distance History Education’ were conducted in December. |
| 2004: Attachment programme for faculty and administrative heads of NOUN, Nigeria at STRIDE in June. |
| 2005: Master of Arts in Distance Education programme, sponsored by the COL , was offered in Nigeria with 50 students (administered by the National Open University of Nigeria). Non-academic staff development programmes, in a series, were revived; and workshops for Assistant Registrars, SOs, SPAs and PAs, and Senior Assistants and Assistants were organised. |
| 2007: On behalf of the university, STRIDE organized a National Seminar on ‘Convergence of Conventional and Distance Modes of Education’. A Module for Distance Learners – Open and Distance Learning and Training Module for Academic Counsellors Open and Distance Learning: Theory and Practice were developed. |
| 2007-08: MADE was sponsored under COL-Rajiv Gandhi Fellowship in collaboration with the South Africa Development Community (SADC) to 41 students in Botswana, Malawi, Lesotho, and Zambia. STRIDE organized 15-day Counsellors’ workshops at IGNOU headquarters and RC, Shillong in which 64 faculty members/ academics of IGNOU, State OUs and DEIs and academic counsellores were trained. |
2008: STRIDE organized a 21-day Refresher Programme in Distance Education for IGNOU faculty at headquarters and academics of regional centres. Ph.D in Distance Education for Indian and international students and M.Phil in Distance Education Programme were initiated. An awareness-cum-policy Roundtable of Vice Chancellors of SOUs and Directors of DEIs on e-learning was conducted on April 16, 2008. Induction and orientation of the first batch of Research and Teaching Associates was initiated.
A Programme Evaluation Unit with necessary faculty support was established at STRIDE, and appointments and detailed action plan are in process. |
