Online communication forums allow students to collaborate and construct understandings of course material together, but little is known about students' discussion participation across online and blended (hybrid) classroom environments. This study begins to address this research gap by examining students' asynchronous discussions (number and length…

This paper considers the issues that distance teachers in higher education who are not writing specialists face in supporting their students' academic writing development. We discuss the usefulness of open web-based writing support resources, and propose the need for a system that serves as an interface with these resources. Such a system should…

This article aims to share experience from a Swedish project on the introduction and implementation of Open Educational Resources (OER) in higher education with both national and international perspectives. The project, "OER--resources for learning", was part of the National Library of Sweden Open Access initiative and aimed at exploring, raising…

In an attempt to improve the effectiveness of distance learning, the present study aims to introduce an innovative way of creating and designing distance learning instructional material incorporating Bernice McCarthy's 4MAT Model based on learning styles. According to McCarthy's theory, all students can learn effectively in a cycle of learning…

The purpose of this study was to explore group forming strategies by examining participation behaviours during whole class discussions associated with active participation in a following small group activity. Written communication data, posted in class discussion forums (843 messages/70,432 words) and small group forums (732 messages/59,394…

The most productive learning experience for students whether online or in face-to-face classes can often be the interaction among students and with an instructor. Online teaching and Social Network Analysis (SNA) offer the opportunity to examine intellectual social networking and strategies that promotes student interaction which can enhance…

The objectives of this project were to: i) describe the experience of implementing Problem-Based Learning in an online course over three consecutive academic years, ii) analyse the learning environment generated, iii) discuss impacts on students' active participation, based on the analysis of their interactions. The participants were 30 students,…

Massive Online Open Courses (MOOCs) have been growing in popularity with educational researchers, instructors, and learners in online environments. Online discussions are as important in MOOCs as in other online courses. Online discussions that occur in MOOCs are influenced by additional factors resulting from their volatile and voluntary…

In Sweden, higher education has moved away from distance education, including physical meetings, to online education with no physical meetings at all. This article focuses on the shift from distance to online education using an educational management perspective that is based on economic, staff, and student data collected between 1994 and 2010…

Open online courses (OOC) with a massive number of students have represented an important development for online education in the past years. A course on artificial intelligence, CS221, at the University of Stanford was offered in the fall of 2011 free and online which attracted 160,000 registered students. It was one of three offered as an…

Implementing Web-based educational environment requires not only developing appropriate architectures, but also incorporating human factors considerations. User interface becomes the major channel to convey information in e-learning context: a well-designed and friendly enough interface is thus the key element in helping users to get the best…

This paper discusses how modern technologies are changing the teacher-student-content relationships from the conception to the delivery of so-called "distance" education courses. The concept of Distance Education has greatly evolved in the digital era of 21st Century. With the widespread use and access to the Internet, exponential growth has been…

This paper updates earlier work in which we defined three generations of distance education pedagogy. We then describe emerging technologies that are most conducive to instructional designs that evolve with each generation. Finally we discuss matching the pedagogies with learning outcomes. (Contains 3 figures.)

Campus based students are welcomed to our University during the first week of their course, but for students studying by online distance learning (ODL) a comparable mechanism does not exist. Academic staff experienced in teaching by ODL considered this to be a gap in students' educational experience and, furthermore, that opportunities for early…

Distance education is often hailed as the answer to the worlds problems of educational provision particularly in the developing countries of which African governments are no exception. Distance education has been used for both pre-service and in-service education, and at most levels of education. However, other than the structural differences…