In their initial study, authors Boston, Ice, and Gibson (2011) explored the relationship between student demographics and interactions, and retention at a large online university. Participants in the preliminary study (n = 20,569) included degree-seeking undergraduate students who completed at least one course at the American Public University…

Researchers have theorized that online degrees are less valuable in the perception of hiring managers. Identifying the factors which influence the hiring managers' perceptions and if obtaining a degree from a for-profit institution influences that perception is critical in designing programs and courses. The purpose of this study was to identify…

Distance education strategies for remotely deployed, highly mobile, or institutionalized populations are reviewed and critiqued. Specifically, asynchronous, offline responses for special military units, Native Americans on remote reservations, prison populations and other geographically, temporally or technologically isolated niche populations are…

Assessment is an important part of distance education (DE). As class sizes get larger and workloads increase, the IT infrastructure and processes used for DE assessments become more of an issue. Using the BS ISO/IEC 23988:2007 Standard for the use of technology in the delivery of assessments as a guide, this paper describes a rational approach to…

Since the advent of hybrid and online instructional delivery for college and university courses, a principal issue has been training faculty to design and deliver these courses. The present study examines a faculty development course, "Build a Web Course," offered to educate faculty members about how to design, create, and implement technology and…

This exploratory study provides an overview of the current landscape of online education in the fields of Master of Public Administration and Master of Public Policy (MPA/MPP) utilizing a dataset compiled from content analysis of MPA/MPP programs' websites and survey of 96 National Association of Schools of Public Affairs and Administration…

Interaction is a critical component of successful online learning and by extension an important component in overall online program quality. The researcher studied the impact of course design on participation in an online university course. The participants were university students (n = 62, male = 33, female = 29). Their responses from online…

Higher education institutions are increasingly looking to online education as a means to broaden their market reach, increase student enrollments and ultimately realize increased tuition revenue. Many institutions, however, find that they have insufficient infrastructure resources to launch one or more fully online learning programs. A small…

Using Fuller's concerns-based model for teacher development, this study identifies concerns and strategies experienced by 103 online instructors in a six-week online professional development course offered multiple times over a three-year period. The study reveals that online instructors identified concerns related to self, task, and impact. In…

The function of leadership is to create a vision for the future, establish strategic priorities, and develop an environment of trust within and between organizations. Great leadership is a process; leadership involves motivational influence, leadership occurs in groups, and involves a shared vision (Northouse, 2010). Instructional designers are…

The incredible growth rates and increased enrollments in virtual physical education (VPE), otherwise known as K-12 online physical education, continue to rise. VPE has the potential to service K-12 student learning in independent and self-paced curriculum. However, VPE brings a healthy skepticism among the profession. To this point, it is…

This article presents findings from a case study related to the risks associated with the choice of traditional, tenure track faculty to teach online. Education offered at a distance via the World Wide Web is on the rise; so too is the demand for university faculty members who will teach those courses. While traditional academic and professional…

The primary goal of this study was to identify a wide range of characteristics of college students that may influence their decisions to select online courses. The motivation underlying this study is the realization that online courses are no longer exclusively being taken by non-traditional students (for undergraduates, that would be students age…

The instructional delivery mode in distance education has been transitioning from the context of a physical classroom environment to a virtual learning environment or maintaining a hybrid of the two. However, most distance education programs in dual mode institutions are situated in traditional face-to-face instructional settings. Distance…

This study investigated how higher education institutions support their distance learning initiatives through their institutional websites--their "virtual face." The population was 40 institutions, of which 10 each were doctoral/research, master, baccalaureate, and community college, located in 40 different states. Using a researcher-developed…