The epistemology's viewpoints towards curriculum in open learning and distance education

Epistemology as one of important branches of philosophy, discusses knowledge nature, subject, sources, and its criterions. Thus teachers face various views about reality and knowledge as results of education. In case of open learning and distance education’s relation with opistemology, some viewpoints and assumptions of epistemology and their effects on important elements of educational system including teacher, student, curriculum and teaching – learning strategies are discussed. In this article more common approaches of epistemology and philosophy through each education descent and their influence on teacher’s viewpoint and functions in this educational system are studied Epistemological approaches include mainly: 1. positivism, 2. interpretivism and 3. critical ones considering the changes of open learning and distance education. Here we study implications of epistemologic viewpoints of curriculum by giving a general scheme of open learning and distance education system.