Hamdan Bin Mohammed eUniversity, Dubai – Annual Congress 2011, Theme: Being at the Leading Edge – How to give the Quest for Excellence a New Meaning, Keynote address: eLearning: Open or Closed? Sir John Daniel, Commonwealth of Learning // It is a great pleasure finally to be here, more than a year after you kindly invited me to become an associate of the Hamdan Bin Mohammed eUniversity as a member of an advisory committee. I see from the number of appearances that I have on the programme that you are making up for lost time so I hope that I do not wear out your welcome mat. // My title this morning is eLearning: Open or Closed? It is a title that can be interpreted in various ways and I shall explore some of them. // Open and distance learning is still a relatively new phenomenon in this part of the world so I shall begin with some simple statements about how, by applying technology through open and distance learning, we can achieve a revolution in education. // Open and distance learning has long been viewed with suspicion in the Arab world. In the second part of this talk I shall address that issue head on and suggest what we can do to lessen the hostility. // Third, I shall talk about eLearning as a modern expression of open and distance learning, explore its advantages and disadvantages and make a recommendation for improving its quality.