A consortium of DEHub, the Australian Universities Quality Agency (AUQA) (now the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency (TEQSA)), The International Network for Quality Assurance Agencies in Higher Education (INQAAHE), and the Australasian Council on Open, Distance and ELearning (ACODE) has undertake a study of the regulatory frameworks for distance education (DE) in the Southwest Pacific/ South East Asia Region.

The existing laws, policies, rules and regulations related to distance and online education in the region are collated and posted in an open database.

The frameworks of countries within the region have been compared for similarities and differences, in particular highlighting those elements that hinder development in distance education. The comparative analysis is discussed in the context of other recent research into regulation of distance education. Case studies of nine higher education institutions, and twenty-three countries in the study region, provide examples of distance and online education regulatory practice.

A final report provides a contextual overview of distance education in the region and outlines the project and analytical results.