Video lectures are fast becoming an everyday educational resource in higher education. They are being incorporated into existing university curricula around the world, while also emerging as a key component of the open education movement. In 2007, the Universitat Politècnica de València (UPV) implemented its poliMedia lecture capture system for…

The integration of technology in higher education has been swiftly changing since 2000. This study, which focused on issues related to technology integration in higher education, included 24 interviews done in 15 universities. The interviews documented an accelerated pace of change as well a wide range of innovations. Relying on the idea that…

This is a critical examination of the claims that innovations such as massive open online courses (MOOCs) will disrupt the business models of the higher education sector. It describes what business models are, analyses the business model of free MOOCs offered by traditional universities and compares that model to that of paid online courses…

This case study relates to distance learning students on open access courses. It demonstrates the use of predictive analytics to generate a model of the probabilities of success and retention at different points, or milestones, in a student journey. A core set of explanatory variables has been established and their varying relative importance at…

Globalisation, the shift to a knowledge economy, and changing demographics are increasingly challenging higher education systems. The move from elite through mass to universal education, coupled with the internationalisation of higher education, has profoundly influenced the system, especially in terms of academic mobility. It has created new…

The virtual learning environment (VLE) has grown to become a piece of complex infrastructure that is now deemed critical to higher educational provision. This paper looks at Moodle and its adoption in higher education. Moodle's origins, as an open source VLE, are investigated and its growth examined in the context of how higher educational…

Open educational resources (OER) and open educational practices (OEP) are relatively new areas in educational research. How OER and OEP can help practitioners enhance curricula is one of a number of under-researched topics. This article aims to enable practitioners to identify and implement appropriate open practices to enhance higher education…

This paper describes the experience of applying a new teaching strategy to a basic mathematics course at the Open University of Catalonia. This strategy requires students to engage with practice and assessment tests with automatic feedback. The main aim of this research is to look into the extent to which the key elements of this teaching strategy…

The wider context (political and economic) for developing sustainable distance learning in UK universities is encouraging and new learning technologies promise much improved products and services. But conventional campus-based universities struggle to build and/or expand sustainable distance learning provision. This article identifies the core…

Dual-mode universities operating in a tough economic environment need to be able to answer a range of questions concerning their use of different teaching modes accurately and with confidence. Only an activity-based costing approach will provide them with this tool. Cost studies of other distance learning projects may provide benchmarks against…

Reduced higher education funding and other austerity measures imposed by governments and institutions have resulted in cascading cuts in resources for programme design, delivery and revision. The instructional design function is often the first casualty of these cuts in many universities. This paper considers the roles and functions of…

In the title the author asked whether dual-mode institutions were a stable "final" model for higher education or a step on the way to something else. Only a few institutions seem able to function in dual mode (i.e. with distinct groups of distance and classroom students) in a successful and sustainable way. Some institutions now claim that all…

In higher education (HE), effective feedback on student assessments plays a vital role in retention and in the development of self-regulating learners, particularly in the first year. In distance learning, where large population modules are common, assignment feedback is generally supported by standard marking guides, issued to the numerous tutors…

There are many studies regarding the benefit of incorporating learning diaries into learning experiences in higher education, though very little research documenting what students record when those diaries are unstructured. There are also several arguments and counter-arguments for providing students with structure in their completion of learning…

Foreign language teacher education is an extensively researched subject. Nevertheless, the research focus is on classroom teachers, despite the fact that distance language learning is burgeoning today. In the light of this, a survey was carried out among distance English language teaching (ELT) tutors at the Chinese radio and television…