In England there is a national survey of all students just before they graduate from bachelor’s programmes called the National Student Survey (NSS). This produces a very influential ranking of all universities and colleges in England in terms of how the education they provide is perceived by their students. Top (or near the top) of this ranking every year is the Open University UK – well ahead of prestigious universities that are ranked many hundreds of places higher on world (research) rankings (although with one exception, to which I will return). This extraordinary fact deserves attention because it is normally assumed that open and distance learning has a series of educational limitations that make it inherently inferior to traditional face to face campusbased education. Somehow, the Open University UK must be embodying fundamental educational principles very effectively despite being a distance learning organisation. If we could spot what these principles were, they might be very useful to us. (Introduction by author)