(introduction...)

Cost-effectiveness analysis is the evaluation of alternatives taking into account both their costs and their effect in producing an outcome or set of outcomes. Clearly the measurement of cost-effectiveness is normally a complex science. This is even more true in distance education where not only is it extremely difficult to assess or to place a value on the outcomes; even the appropriateness of the choice of the set of outcomes is not universally agreed. Furthermore, as the last section demonstrated, different outcomes are deemed to be more or less important by different stakeholders.