This article presents a case study of the adoption and use of open textbooks by three high school teachers in the KwaZulu-Natal province of South Africa. The textbooks, collaboratively authored and distributed through the South African initiative, Siyavula, are available online and are openly licensed, allowing teachers to freely use, modify,…

In the last several years, a variety of approaches and tools have been developed for giving access to open educational resources (OER) related to food safety, security, and food standards, as well to various targeted audiences (e.g., farmers, agronomists). The aim of this paper is to present a technology infrastructure currently in demonstration…

This paper proposes both theoretical and empirical approaches to differentiating the community of inquiry (CoI) in online classes at individual and group levels. Following the example of research on organizational climate, it assesses the strength of shared perceptions of teaching presence, social presence, and cognitive presence. The paper…

Agriculture is the mainstay of Kenya's economy and contributes significantly to the gross domestic product. A great majority of this contribution comes from smallholder farmers who paradoxically face numerous obstacles ranging from a lack of support structures to poor policies and inadequate resources. A major challenge is assisting these…

Learning analytics is a domain that has been constantly evolving throughout recent years due to the acknowledgement of its importance by those using intelligent data, learner-produced data, and analysis models to discover information and social connections for predicting and advising people's learning [1]. Learning analytics may be applied in…

The AgShare Phase I Program, conducted at Makerere University, Kampala, Uganda, was formed to create open education resources for teaching and community development through action research. The study was conducted by an interdisciplinary team of investigators from fields of veterinary medicine and agri-business. Two master of science students…

Recent changes in the higher education landscape have called for greater access and accountability in a number of areas, most particularly distance learning. While there is a very significant instructional aspect to this equation, providing effective support and services to students enrolled in online education is becoming comparatively important,…

Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University--Worldwide serves more than 36,000 online students across the globe, many of whom are military and other non-traditional students, offering 34 undergraduate, graduate, and professional education/workforce certificate programs, presented both online and via blended delivery modes. The centralized model of online…

There are comparatively few studies on one-to-one tutoring in online settings, even though it has been found to be an effective model. This paper explores student-student online coaching from the coach perspective. The empirical case is the project Math Coach, where K-12 students are coached by teacher students using instant messaging. This…

Less than half of the students in the United States graduate from high school and are ready to take college-level math courses. Many years and varieties of remedial math programs have failed to dramatically improve outcomes, especially at scale. The question we face is whether technology in general, and open educational resources in particular,…

Higher education institutions are under significant pressure to provide affordable, sustainable approaches that will prepare their students with the skills they will need after graduation to achieve success in the 21st Century workplace. Digital Media Simulations are among the new technologies that have emerged with the promise to help…

This article describes the design and development of a professional development program based upon research on the competencies necessary for online teaching success conducted at Penn State University in 2009-2010. The article highlights how the results of this research are being aligned with various professional development courses comprising the…

Online education is no longer a peripheral phenomenon in higher education: over one-third of faculty members have taught or developed an online course. As institutions of higher education expand their online education offerings, administrators need to recognize that supporting faculty members through the use of incentives and through effective…

The graduate students admitted to the online and blended programs in higher education at Texas Tech University and the University of Memphis were surveyed about their respective university websites, or the institution's "virtual face." A total of 42 students rated 30 web-based services as "must have," "nice to have," "delighted to have (but not…

The growth of online learning has exposed fundamental gaps in our knowledge, both theoretical and pragmatic. This research investigated some questions of the role of emergent leaders in online leaning and the influence of different behaviors. Firstly are there any common factors that identify thought-leaders? Secondly does the presence of…