A Survey of Ontology of the Third Generation of Distant Education with an Emphasis on Payame Noor University of Distance Education

The purpose of the present research is to survey the ontology of the third generation of distant education with an emphasis on Payame nnor University of distance education. The Method of this research was qualitative and descriptive. Based on this method, documents were used for gathering data. On the one hand, the ontology of the third generation of distant education is based on a postmodern point of view. This is based on multicultural education and aims to create equal opportunities. On the other hand, the philosophy of educational system of Iran is theistic (Islamic) realism. According to this philosophy, reality exists outside the mind and fact is universal. According to this point of view, human being enjoys great magnificence. It is important to consider different human needs and will. However, there is a gap between theory and practice. Iran’s distant education is still in the second generation and to enter the third generation, the elimination of executive obstacles including decentralization, cooperation between educational experts and engineers of IT, a change in syllabuses and especially society's specialized understanding of the concept of distant education is required.