Reports of massive open online courses (MOOCs) appeared in mainstream news in the early 2010s with messages of potential disruption to existing higher education systems. Several years on, the role of MOOCs is still evolving. The media has the power to influence acceptance of new ideas, therefore this research investigates New Zealand news media…

The purpose of this study was to examine student viewpoints about privacy and personal data collection in online courses in U.S. higher education settings. Results of data analysis revealed that students were aware that their learning behaviours (such as login frequency, pages viewed or clicked, and learning profiles) could be monitored and…

Historically, primary and secondary distance education in New Zealand has focused on providing opportunities for rural students. With the advent of Tomorrow's Schools in 1989, the need for rural schools to compete with urban schools in terms of their curricular offerings was one reason for creating e-learning clusters that would eventually become…

This study analysed the relationships between teaching presence, social presence, and cognitive presence in online learning environments (Garrison, Anderson, & Archer, 2000), with an emphasis on examining ways in which the design of instructor presentation formats relates to student responses in discussion forums. Both quantitative and…

Teaching and learning in higher education are being transformed through complex configurations of people, tasks, and material and digital resources. Successful designs for innovative learning require us to understand how these complex configurations relate to learners' activity. This paper illustrates the application of a networked learning…

Literacy skills and behaviours of university-level students are of wide interest today. The research reported here fits in this tradition. It examines second-year psychology students' source use in a course taught through online distance learning (ODL). The number of sources used increased across assignments. Most used were the textbook,…

This article explores some key attributes of effective online tertiary educators. Using qualitative research methods, data were collected via semi-structured interviews which were conducted with a small sample of university academics in New Zealand and Australia, and analysed using an inductive approach and open and closed coding techniques. In…

This paper examines how, in a resource-constrained context, access to personal mobile devices for first-year university students increases flexibility of learning and creates an environment of greater inclusivity at university. In 2016, at the start of their first year, 201 students in an extended degree programme in the Humanities at the…

The first step to enabling Maori achievement is engaging whanau (family) and tamariki (children) in situations where their mana (autonomy) and tuakiri (identity) remains intact. This paper identifies steps for culturally critical and sustaining practice when engaging whanau and students, highlights some positive examples, and reflects on lessons…

The term "flipping the classroom" is relatively recent, although elements of the underlying principles have been around for many years. It is generally accepted that the "flipped classroom model" consists of replacing direct instruction, or lectures, with video clips to be watched off campus, and using face-to-face class time…

Although online education offerings continue to grow in the higher education marketplace, issues of student achievement and course rigour still challenge the underlying instructional model, and alignment with institutional missions. Pedagogically, instructors and course designers can mitigate these issues by leveraging technology to further…

Universities are increasingly recognising the need to broaden the experience and understanding of their students beyond a single disciplinary approach, to produce graduates more capable of solving the problems of a multidisciplinary world. At the University of Tasmania, a "breadth unit" programme is underway with the dual purpose of…

Two hundred and twenty-six qualitative interviews with students studying at Australia's largest online tertiary education organisation, Open Universities Australia (OUA), found that failure to complete assessments due to unexpected and unavoidable employment commitments was the standout reason for dropping out of its open-access courses. The…

Evaluating accessibility is an important equity step in assessing the effectiveness and usefulness of online learning materials for students with disabilities such as visual or hearing impairments. Previous studies in this area have indicated that, over time, university websites have become gradually more inaccessible. This paper relates findings…

The motivation to adopt innovative communication and e-learning practices in education settings can be stimulated by events such as natural disasters. Education institutions in the Pacific Rim cannot avoid the likelihood of natural disasters that could close one or more buildings on a campus and affect their ability to continue current educational…