This research explores manifestations of "diploma disease" in distance education (DE) upgrading programmes for basic school teachers in Ghana. A survey design which included document analysis was used to explore the emphasis in the contents of the DE programme and the experiences of teachers who took the programmes. The study involved a…

This article outlines a methodological approach to the creation, production and dissemination of online collaborative audio-visual projects, using new social learning technologies and open-source video tools, which can be applied to any e-learning environment in higher education. The methodology was developed and used to design a course in the…

This study sought to determine the attributing and contributing factors to examination absence as well as whether the academic and social support available to students had a role to play in discouraging or reducing absence from examinations using results from a quantitative survey of ACN203S (Cost Accounting and Control) students who were admitted…

To establish which factors predict student intentions to contribute towards an OpenCourseWare site, an online questionnaire was distributed among University of Queensland students via email. The 320 participants completed items that were based on the theory of planned behaviour and were designed to measure attitudes, subjective norms and perceived…

As higher education institutions the world over are gradually transitioning to e-textbooks, this study explored Ghanaian undergraduate students' awareness, experiences and perceptions of e-books, particularly with regard to their acceptance of e-textbooks as eventual replacements of physical textbooks. A total of 253 undergraduate students at a…

National student feedback surveys are administered in a number of countries, and several of these encompass both campus-based and distance learning students. The UK Open University achieves a high ranking in the annual National Student Survey (NSS), but there are some anomalies in the results. The NSS questionnaire was administered to three…

e-Learning has entered the mainstream in higher education and many institutions are implementing technology-mediated learning at some level. This paper outlines the case of a course taught jointly in 2010 over three months by two graduate programmes in management at the University of Tsukuba in Japan and the Grenoble Ecole de Management in France…

Universities are increasingly using advanced video-conferencing environments to interact for teaching and research purposes at a distance and in situations that combine distant participants with those face-to-face. Those who use these technologies expect professional development support to do so but we do not yet have a comprehensive research…

Interactive computer-marked assignments (iCMAs) are in use on a range of Science Faculty level 1 modules at the Open University UK, alongside tutor-marked assignments, for summative and formative purposes. They are also used diagnostically to help prospective students to make an appropriate choice of starting point. iCMAs have been very well…

This paper presents and discusses the initial findings of a mobile language learning project undertaken in the context of an undergraduate distance-learning French language programme at The Open University (UK). The overall objective of the project was to investigate students' experiences when using their own portable devices for additional…

This paper identifies the key factors that contribute to the Open School in India students' satisfaction, considering student support elements at pre-entry, start up, learning, evaluation and certification and after certification phases. The study adapted Rekkedal and Eriksen's importance-satisfaction model to recognise areas that are important to…

The study sought to determine lecturers' and students' perceptions of factors contributing to students' failure to submit research projects on time in three departments of the Zimbabwe Open University. The study employed a descriptive survey design and was both quantitative and qualitative. The questionnaire used as a data-gathering instrument had…

The role of information and communication technologies (ICTs) in addressing global development agenda, including the key Millennium Development Goal of promoting gender equality and empowering women, is being increasingly recognised. ICTs, by themselves, however cannot be effective if they do not address the central issue of women's access and…

This case study involved 429 distance education diploma students at the University of Botswana. The aim of the study was to find out whether these students had access to MP3 players and other technologies essential in distance learning. Findings show that, contrary to expectations, learners did not have access to MP3 digital audio devices.…

This research uses adapted self-assessment questionnaires to examine the relationships between the learning motivation, learning strategies, self-efficacy, attribution and learning results of 135 distance learners. The aim is to model the relationship between psychological characteristics and learning results of distance learners. The outcomes of…