Online Distance Graduate Education in Turkey Through the Lenses of Administrators

This study investigates the opinions of people who have administrative experiences in distanceeducation application and research centers in universities in Turkey about graduate distance education programs(master’s and doctoral degree). It was examined that why the number of master’s degree distance educationprograms are so few and why universities don’t open doctoral degree distance education programs. In thisqualitative study, data were collected by an online questionnaire with open ended questions. Participants of thestudy were 11 academic members who have administrative experiences in distance education. Qualitative date wasanalyzed with content analysis method. According to the findings of the study, participants indicate that regulationsare insufficient and this is one of the reasons for limited number of online distance education programs. In addition,they stated that there is a negative perception towards distance education among academics. Most of them thinkthat distance education graduate programs should be offered.