Marcio Mugnol is a member of the distance education evaluation team on the Brazilian Ministry of Education (MEC) board. He has delivered concurrent presentations in distance education and is currently researching the advancement of distance education in the Brazilian market. He is a specialist in business management from FGV (Fundação Getulio…

U.S. public university system policies were examined to learn how credit hours were determined for asynchronous online education. Findings indicated that (a) credit hour meaning and use are not consistent, (b) primary responsibility for credit hour decisions was at the local level, and (c) no policies exist to guide credit hour application for…

The aim of this article was to examine the experiences of students who have participated in massive open online courses (MOOCs). The results of an initial Google blog search were narrowed down to a sample of twenty-one blog posts, each of which was written by a MOOC participant. Content analysis was applied to identify and classify blog comments…

This article presents the results of an investigation into the qualities and qualifications sought in distance education leaders by institutions of higher education in the United States. The researchers examined 191 distance education leadership position announcements posted by online sources between 1997 and 2010. Content analysis of these…

Thirteen online mathematics classes were analyzed using a discourse coding system created by Bellack et al. (1966). Findings suggest that the ratio of teacher-to-student discourse is far lower in online than in face-to-face classes and varies widely from instructor to instructor. A strong positive correlation was shown between instructor posts and…

The upcoming round of exemptions to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998 anticircumvention provision and the questions raised by the copyright infringement lawsuit filed against the against University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) for its streaming video practices illustrate the problematic state of the law concerning the digitization…

This article presents a review of the current practice associated with American-model higher education (AHE) overseas with particular focus on expanding distance education. The review identifies specific areas of weakness in the practice of AHE overseas.

The chapters in Part IV of "Handbook of Distance Education" (2007), "Policies, Administration, and Management," focus on the ways in which policies encourage or hamper the integration of distance education into mainstream educational institutions. The authors provide insights and perspectives into the key policies, roles, structures, processes,…

Borje Holmberg is Swedish and has been active in distance education as a theorist and practitioner for more than fifty years. He is the former president of the Wilhelm-Buchner Hochschule, a distance teaching university in Germany. Here, Holmberg is interviewed by William C. Diehl, the Interviews Editor for "The American Journal of Distance…

As noted by Moore (2007, xxiii), the fifth section of the second edition of the "Handbook of Distance Education" focused on "some of the main consumers and suppliers of distance education programs," including elementary and secondary education, community colleges, universities, the corporate sector, continuing professional education, the armed…

Although both the number of online learning opportunities and students with disabilities in higher education has increased over the last two decades, students with disabilities may be overlooked. The purpose of this study was to examine attitudes toward requesting accommodations in the online learning environment among college students with…

One of the emerging issues in educational discourse today is the development and use of Open Education Resources (OER) and their potential in expanding access and improving the quality of education, particularly in developing countries where there is a dearth of quality materials. This article seeks to contribute to the debate on OER. It…

This article presents an interview with Ken Udas, chief executive officer of UMassOnline. During the past decade, Udas has held leadership positions in online university initiatives and has served the field through his leadership in organizations including the Association of Public Land Grant Universities, EDUCAUSE, IMS, Sloan-C, and the American…

A first-of-its-kind course at The George Washington University was taught entirely online using a self-paced, modular, case-based multispecialty format. Data on student perceptions of the course were obtained through a Web-based survey administered to students who had completed the course. Close-ended questions were analyzed using basic…

This article presents an interview with Darcy W. Hardy, executive director of the University of Texas (UT) TeleCampus and assistant vice chancellor for academic affairs with the UT System. A member of the United States Distance Learning Association (USDLA) since 1999, she is the founder of the International Forum for Women in e-Learning (IFWE),…