Distance education or distance learning is the education of students who may not always be physically present at a school.

Traditionally this usually involved correspondence courses wherein the student corresponded with the school via post.

Today it involves online education.

Courses that are conducted (51 percent or more) are either hybrid, blended or 100% whole instruction.

Massive open online courses (MOOCs), offering large-scale interactive participation and open access through the World Wide Web or other network technologies, are recent developments in distance education.

A number of other terms (distributed learning, e-learning, online learning, etc) are used roughly synonymously with distance education.

Czech Technical University in Prague is one of the largest universities in the Czech Republic, and is one of the oldest institutes of technology in Central Europe.

It is also the oldest non-military technical university in Europe.

An academic degree is a qualification awarded on successful completion of a course of study in higher education, normally at a college or university.

These institutions commonly offer degrees at various levels, typically including bachelor's, master’s and doctorates, often alongside other academic certificates, and professional degrees.

The most common undergraduate degree is the bachelor's degree, although in some countries lower qualifications are titled degrees (e.g. associate degrees in the US or foundation degrees in the UK) while in others a higher-level first degree is more usual.

Educational accreditation is a type of quality assurance process under which services and operations of educational institutions or programs are evaluated by an external body to determine if applicable standards are met.

If standards are met, accredited status is granted by the appropriate agency.

Professional development is learning to earn or maintain professional credentials such as academic degrees to formal coursework, conferences and informal learning opportunities situated in practice.

It has been described as intensive and collaborative, ideally incorporating an evaluative stage.

There are a variety of approaches to professional development, including consultation, coaching, communities of practice, lesson study, mentoring, reflective supervision and technical assistance.