UNED

UNED is a Spanish public university that provides distance education at national and international levels. It was founded in 1972 to enable priority access to university and further education for all those who, while capable of pursuing higher studies, were unable to attend on – campus classes for work, financial, residential or other reasons. At present, it has a network of more than 60 Centres throughout the country where students have access to all kinds of academic services, including libraries, audiovisual materials, face-to-face tutorials, videoconferencing and a virtual campus (telematic tutoring).
UNED is the largest university in Spain with more than 155.000 students enrolled in its different modalities of education and training. The study offer includes degrees in Science, Humanities, Social Sciences, Engineering and Computer Science, as well as more than 100 Doctoral programmes, Master degrees, and Professional Development Programmes. The difference between the UNED and the other universities in Spain lies on its geographic dimension (national and international – 16 Study Centers abroad) and on the use of distance methodology and complementary pedagogical tools (Television, Radio, Video and Virtual University Campus). 1.200 full time teaching staff, 4.000 tutors and 1.200 administrative and technical staff make all this happen.
UNED is now providing technical assistance and consultancy services to many institutions in Latin America and in Europe in matters such as networking of study centers, virtualization of distance education courses, or the methodology / production of multimedia modules.
UNED provides strong institutional capacity in the use of ICT for higher education. UNED has the largest existing educative videoconference network in Europe, set up in 61 centers in Spain and in the centers in Miami and Paris. More than 100,000 of the UNED students are now enrolled in web-based courses.