Volume 14, numéro 1, mars 2013

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The United Nations (UN) constituted 2005–2014 as the decade for educational sustainable development when bridges have to be built between academic institutions and their communities. In this article I will therefore do a literature search from 2005–2011 on what it means to be a sustainable university with a sustainable curriculum by looking at case studies from other higher education institutions in order to begin to give guidelines for such an endeavour in an open and distance learning (ODL) institution. Thereafter I will focus on recommendations on how to transform present study material into a green curriculum by using a qualification in Human Settlements as a case study.

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This paper is intended to investigate the degree to which interaction and other predictors contribute to student satisfaction in online learning settings. This was a preliminary study towards a dissertation work which involved the establishment of interaction and satisfaction scales through a content validity survey. Regression analysis was performed to determine the contribution of predictor variables to student satisfaction. The effects of student background variables on predictors were explored. The results showed that learner-instructor interaction, learner-content interaction, and Internet self-efficacy were good predictors of student satisfaction while interactions among students and self-regulated learning did not contribute to student satisfaction. Learner-content interaction explained the largest unique variance in student satisfaction. Additionally, gender, class level, and time spent online per week seemed to have influence on learner-learner interaction, Internet self-efficacy, and self-regulation.

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The use of e-learning for on-the-job training has grown exponentially in the last decade due to it being accepted by people in charge of businesses. Few papers have explored virtual training from the workers’ standpoint, that is, the perception they have about the different training methodologies (face-to-face vs. virtual) and the attitudes they have towards on-the-job learning. Training, in this context, is an investment for both the two participating agents: businesses and workers. It seems logical that knowing the perceptions and attitudes shown by the targets of the training is, at least, as important as knowing the advantages for the companies. To analyse workers’ perceptions and attitudes we conducted an online survey of 2,000 employees of the leading European savings bank, CaixaBank (http://www.caixabank.com/index_en.html), on training habits, perceptions, motivations, and disincentives of undertaking face-to-face or online instruction. The results reveal that workers perceive e-learning as a more flexible and up-to-date training methodology. On the other hand, face-to-face training continues to be perceived as a more motivating methodology compared to virtuality and with better explanations from the course trainers. As regards motivations given by the workers when it comes to training, there are three main groups of attitudes: those which are more affective and social, those which reveal poor adaptability or fear of the new training requirements, and, finally, those linked to the knowledge society. Such results state that while the benefits of distance methodology can be clearly identified from the company’s point of view (i.e., as a flexible and efficient methodology to develop the employees’ skills and knowledge), from the employees’ standpoint, the advantages of virtual training are not so clear and depend to a great extent on their attitude towards the use of virtuality.

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This paper describes an open educational resources (OER) architecture framework that would bring significant improvements in a well-structured and systematic way to the educational practices of distance education institutions of India. The OER architecture framework is articulated with six dimensions: pedagogical, technological, managerial, academic, financial, and ethical. These dimensions are structured with the component areas of relevance: IT infrastructure services, management support systems, open content development and maintenance, online teaching-learning, and learner assessment and evaluation of the OER architecture framework. An OER knowledge and information base, including a web portal, is proposed in the form of a series of knowledge repositories. This system would not only streamline the delivery of distance education but also would enhance the quality of distance learning through the development of high quality e-content, instructional processes, course/programme content development, IT infrastructure, and network systems. Thus the proposed OER architecture framework when implemented in the distance education system (DES) of India would improve the quality of distance education and also increase its accessibility in a well-organised and structured way.

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A large number of unqualified and under-qualified in-service teachers are holding back socio-economical development in South Africa, a newly industrialized country. Open and distance learning (ODL) provides an innovative strategy and praxis for developing and newly industrialized countries to reach their educational and socio-economical objectives through professional development and training. In order to examine factors which affect the success of ODL offered by the North-West University in South Africa, a qualitative and quantitative research approach is used. Factors examined include face-to-face classroom contact, the implementation and use of ICTs, and e-readiness. The relationships between these factors are also discussed. A questionnaire was administered to 87 teacher-students in four Advanced Certificate in Education (ACE) programs to collect quantitative data regarding aspects of their classes and the e-readiness of students. This data was qualitatively elaborated upon by three semi-structured, open-ended focus-group interviews. Besides descriptive statistics, Spearman’s rank-order correlations (r) were determined between variables pertaining to negative feelings towards face-to-face classroom contact, ODL as students’ choice of delivery mode, and students’ positive attitude towards information and communication technology (ICT). Combined quantitative and qualitative findings were used to evaluate the effectiveness of contact classes as well as the e-readiness of students towards the attainment of ODL development Phase D. This phase refers to UNESCO’s description of ICT implementation, integration, and use. Relationships (Spearman’s rank-order correlations) between ODL, as teacher-students’ choice of educational delivery mode, and aspects of their e-readiness suggest that the e-readiness of teacher-students is implicit to their choice of ODL as educational delivery mode for professional development.

EN :

Over the past 15 years, learning in distance education universities has become more interactive, flexible, collaborative, and participative. Nevertheless, some accounts have highlighted the importance of developing more instrumental and standardized educational practices to answer the challenges of employability. In fact, the choice of skills that are important to learning communities and the labour market has been the subject of controversy because it involves heterogeneous motives among different groups. This paper compares the perceptions of employability skills in a sample of teachers from the Universidade Aberta and a sample of students who attend a local learning centre at this University. The research focused on the following dimensions: a) the most important employability skills, and b) the employability skills to be developed in online undergraduate degrees. To collect the required data, a questionnaire was prepared and applied to students and teachers, taking the theoretical model of Knight and Yorke (2006) as its main reference. In spite of the specificity of each group, the results revealed some similarities between students and teachers with regard to employability. The conclusions also highlighted the need to promote research on this matter in online education.

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Remix is touted as one of the most important practices within the field of open educational resources (OER). But remixing is still not mainstream practice in education and the barriers and limitations to remix are not well known. In this article we discuss the design and development of a print and web-based booklet created to introduce the topic of OER to schoolteachers. The guide, the first of its kind available in Portuguese, was created through the remix and translation of existing resources available in English. Choosing design-as-remix raised a series of concerns related to licensing, attribution, context, and technical standards. In this article we review the concerns related to culture and inequity within the OER movement, followed by the design choices and procedures, and finally the implications of these issues for the open educational resources movement.

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Academic publications are too often ignored by other researchers. There are various reasons: Researchers know that conclusions may eventually be proved wrong; publications are sometimes retracted; effects may decline when studied later; researchers occasionally don’t seem to know about papers they have allegedly authored; there are even accusations of fraud (Cohen, 2011). In this exploratory case study, 10 papers were examined to determine the various ways they were used by others, whether there were cases of reported effects declining, and whether, among those who referenced the papers, there were suggestions that anything in the papers ought to be retracted. Findings showed that all the papers had been referenced by others (337 user publications were found, containing a total of 868 references). Other findings include the following: Single references were far more common than multiple references; applications/replications were the least common type of usage (23 occurrences), followed by contrasts/elaborations (34), and quotations (65); unlike reports regarding publications in the sciences, whether the paper was solo- or co-authored did not affect usage; appearance in a non-prestige journal was actually associated with more usage of some kinds; and well over 80% of uses were in heavily scrutinized sources (journal articles or theses/dissertations). The paper concludes with recommendations to writers about how to avoid producing publications that are ignored.

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Many open universities and distance education institutions have shifted from a predominantly print-based mode of delivery to an online mode characterised by the use of virtual learning environments and various web technologies. This paper describes the impact of the shift to open and distance e-learning (ODeL), as this trend might be called, on the course design practices of faculty members at a small single-mode distance education university in the Philippines. Specifically, the paper presents and analyses the faculty’s perspectives on how their course design practices have changed and issues and challenges arising from these changes. The findings suggest that faculty training programs in ODeL should aim to develop a comprehensive range of ODeL competencies in a systematic and coherent way. Based on the findings, as well as research on practitioner development in teaching effectively with technology, a framework for developing ODeL competencies among faculty is proposed. Aside from covering the four areas of change in course design practice identified in the study, the framework also specifies levels of expertise (basic, intermediate, and advanced), indicating degrees of complexity of the knowledge and skills required for each area at each level. All of the competencies listed for all four areas at the basic level comprise the minimum competencies for teaching an online distance education course.

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This paper describes a specially developed online peer-review system, the Peer Portal, and the first results of its use for quality enhancement of bachelor’s and master’s thesis manuscripts. The peer-review system is completely student driven and therefore saves time for supervisors and creates a direct interaction between students without interference from supervisors. The purpose is to improve thesis manuscript quality, and thereby use supervisor time more efficiently, since peers review basic aspects of the manuscripts and give constructive suggestions for improvements. The process was initiated in 2012, and, in total, 260 peer reviews were completed between 1st January and 15th May, 2012. All peer reviews for this period have been analyzed with the help of content analysis. The purpose of analysis is to assess the quality of the students work. The results are categorized in four groups: 1) excellent (18.1%), 2) good (22.7%), 3) fragmented (18.5%), and 4) poor (40.7%). The overall result shows that almost 40% of the students produced excellent or good peer reviews and almost as many produced poor peer reviews. The result shows that the quality varies considerably. Explanations of these quality variations need further study. However, alternative hypotheses followed by some strategic suggestions are discussed in this study. Finally, a way forward in terms of improving peer reviews is outlined: 1) development of a peer wizard system and 2) rating of received peer reviews based on the quality categories created in this study. A Peer Portal version 2.0 is suggested, which will eliminate the fragmented and poor quality peer reviews, but still keep this review system student driven and ensure autonomous learning.

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In a learning system, multiple communities represent a networked structure of learning experiences. Individuals belong to multiple communities connected though complex relationships consisting of people, resources, rituals, and ties. Learning occurs as individuals traverse this network from one community to the next. This paper explores the question of how learning occurs in compound communities from the perspective of knowledge capital, that is, the communities’ collective knowledge, skill, and perspective, as well as relationships and connections among members. Through interviews conducted with postgraduate students belonging to multiple communities, we identified issues related to conflict between communities, closed-congregation communities, privacy, and reputation. The results have implications concerning social and structural aspects of learning and instructional design in multiple communities.

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Open distance learning (ODL) has long been an important option for formal and non-formal education (NFE) in most developed and developing countries, but less so in post-conflict countries, including Cambodia. However, in Cambodia there is now greater awareness that ODL can complement traditional face-to-face educational approaches, particularly as there is a shortage of teachers in the country. Thus, understanding how ODL can achieve learning and other objectives has important implications for both formal education and NFE. If it can be found to be effective, ODL has the potential of reaching a large number of people at comparatively lower average costs. This paper reports on a project where the same content was taught to farmers in Cambodia via traditional face-to-face and via ODL and compares outcomes between the different training methods. Exploring the extent to which farmers had adopted new farm practices taught in the course, our results indicate that the outcomes did not vary considerably between those trained using the different approaches.

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Assessment in education allows for obtaining, organizing and presenting information about how much and how well the student is learning. The current paper aims at analysing and discussing some of the most state-of-the-art assessment systems in education. Later, this work presents a specific use case developed for the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya, which is an on-line University. An automatic evaluation tool is proposed so that it allows the student to evaluate himself anytime and receive instant feedback. This tool is a web-based platform and it has been designed for engineering subjects (i.e. with math symbols and formulas) in Catalan and Spanish. Particularly, the technique used for automatic assessment is Latent Semantic Analysis. Although the experimental framework from the use case is quite challenging, results are promising.

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The use of online learning at the primary and secondary school level is growing exponentially in the United States. Much of this growth is with full-time online schools, most of which are operated by for-profit companies that use proprietary online course content. In this article we trace the development of, and philosophy behind, a full-time online school that uses open access software and open educational resources for course content. As more nations begin to put in place plans for primary and secondary education in the event of natural disasters (e.g., the Christchurch earthquakes) or pandemics (e.g., avian flu or H1N1), the availability of open online content is of critical importance.