Volume 14, numéro 4, septembre 2013

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This article reviews the discourse of mission in large distance teaching and open universities, in order to analyse the theories of development and social justice that are claimed or may be inherent in them. It is suggested that in a number of cases the claims are unsupported or naive. The article goes on to set out the nature of Amartya Sen’s capability approach for development, and to identify its potential for reviewing distance and e-learning more widely as a contributor to development and social justice.

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Despite continuous efforts to increase retention, dropout rates are high in distance universities. The objectives of this study were: 1) to investigate the extent and causes of non re-enrollment at a mega university, Korea National Open University; and 2) to suggest actions to improve the retention of students, in general, and those with higher risks of dropout in particular. A survey designed to establish the student demographics and the students’ main reasons for non re-enrollment was carried out during spring, 2009 with 1,353 respondents. The results indicate that a lack of feedback from the instructors, heavy workload, and difficulties in studying at a distance were the main reasons for non re-enrollment. The learners’ perceptions of the value of the degrees and their ages, gender, and educational backgrounds were also found to be significant factors in decisions not to re-enroll. The suggested solutions for reducing non re-enrollment include: a decrease in the number of required credit hours’ study per semester; the provision of stronger social support; the introduction of a more flexible enrollment system; and better use of the available technology and infrastructure to help both students and instructors build stronger learning communities.

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The high cost of textbooks is of concern not only to college students but also to society as a whole. Open textbooks promise the same educational benefits as traditional textbooks; however, their efficacy remains largely untested. We report on one community college’s adoption of a collection of open resources across five different mathematics classes. During the 2012 fall semester, 2,043 students in five different courses used these open access resources. We present a comparison between the previous two years in terms of the number of students who withdrew from the courses and the number that completed the courses with a C grade or better. Our analysis suggests that while there was likely no change in these educational outcomes, students who have access to open access materials collectively saved a significant amount of money. Students and faculty were surveyed as to their perceptions of these materials and the results were generally favorable.

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Online distance learners are in a particularly complex relationship with the educational institutions they belong to (Bayne, Gallagher, & Lamb, 2012). For part-time distance students, arrivals and departures can be multiple and invisible as students take courses, take breaks, move into independent study phases of a programme, find work or family commitments overtaking their study time, experience personal upheaval or loss, and find alignments between their professional and academic work. These comings and goings indicate a fluid and temporary assemblage of engagement, not a permanent or stable state of either “presence” or “distance”. This paper draws from interview data from the “New Geographies of Learning” project, a research project exploring the notions of space and institution for the MSc in Digital Education at the University of Edinburgh, and from literature on distance learning and online community. The concept of nearness emerged from the data analyzing the comings and goings of students on a fully online programme. It proposes that “nearness” to a distance programme is a temporary assemblage of people, circumstances, and technologies. This state is difficult to establish and impossible to sustain in an uninterrupted way over the long period of time that many are engaged in part-time study. Interruptions and subsequent returns should therefore be seen as normal in the practice of studying as an online distance learner, and teachers and institutions should work to help students develop resilience in negotiating various states of nearness. Four strategies for increasing this resilience are proposed: recognising nearness as effortful; identifying affinities; valuing perspective shifts; and designing openings.

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To address the training needs of Further Education and Training college (FETC) lecturers, and in the absence of a full professional education qualification, several higher education institutions, FETCs, and other bodies in South Africa formed an alliance to develop a short programme towards a possible future full qualification. In 2010 a Vocational Education Orientation Programme (VEOP) was piloted. In line with the responsibility for quality assurance, and the need to inform further developments in the training of FETC lecturers, the aim of this research was to evaluate the VEOP presented by the University of the Free State (UFS). To reach the stated aim, a two phase evaluative study was undertaken (1) to assess the individual modules, and (2) to holistically investigate the quality of the programme. Two questionnaires were used to gather data. The first set of data was collected at the completion of each of the six modules. For the second phase of the study, 48 lecturer-students were randomly selected more than a year after completion of the VEOP. The study identified a number of strengths and weaknesses of the VEOP. The results emphasise the need to carefully select tutors and train them to have an understanding of the FETC milieu, rethink the methodology employed in the education training of FETC lecturers, and redesign the modules’ contents to better reflect the FETC sector. The need to enhance student support and improve administration is also highlighted by the study. The results of the study may inform the development of a full qualification for FETC lecturers.

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The open educational resources initiative has been underway for over a decade now and higher education institutions are slowly adopting open educational resources (OER). The use and creation of OER are important aspects of adoption and both are needed for the benefits of OER to be fully realized. Based on the results of a survey developed to measure the readiness of faculty and staff to adopt OER, this paper focuses on the measurement of OER use and creation, and identifies factors to increase both. The survey was administered in September 2012 to faculty and staff of Athabasca University, Canada’s open university. The results offer a snapshot of OER use and creation at one university. The survey tool could provide a mechanism to compare and contrast OER adoption with other higher education institutions. Forty-three percent of those in the sample are using OER and 31% are creating OER. This ratio of use to creation is introduced as a possible metric to measure adoption.

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Enrollment in online courses has outpaced overall university enrollment for the past several years. The growth of online courses does not appear to be slowing. The purpose of this study was to compare course completion and student academic performance between online and traditional courses. Archival data from the host university student records system was collected using the Structured Query Language. Descriptive statistics were used to analyze student characteristics. Chi-square analysis was used to determine if statistically significant differences existed between students enrolled in online and traditional courses when comparing course completion and academic performance. Analysis found statistically significant differences existed in both course completion and academic performance for students enrolled in online versus traditional courses. Additional analysis indicated statistically significant differences existed in course completion by course discipline.

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This research explored how educators with limited programming experiences learned to design mobile apps through peer support and instructor guidance. Educators were positive about the sense of community in this online course. They also considered App Inventor a great web-based visual programming tool for developing useful and fully functioning mobile apps. They had great sense of empowerment through developing unique apps by using App Inventor. They felt their own design work and creative problem solving were inspired by the customized mobile apps shared by peers. The learning activities, including sharing customized apps, providing peer feedback, composing design proposals, and keeping design journals (blogging), complemented each other to support a positive sense of community and form a strong virtual community of learning mobile app design. This study helped reveal the educational value of mobile app design activities and the web-based visual programming tool, and the possibility of teaching/learning mobile app design online. The findings can also encourage educators to explore and experiment on the potential of incorporating these design learning activities in their respective settings, and to develop mobile apps for their diverse needs in teaching and learning.

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Despite the increase in massive open online courses (MOOCs), evidence about the pedagogy of learning in MOOCs remains limited. This paper reports on an investigation into the pedagogy in one MOOC - Oxford Brookes University’s ‘First Steps in Learning and Teaching in Higher Education’ MOOC (FSLT12). FSLT12 was an open and free professional development opportunity for people moving into HE teaching. It was a small course (200 participants registered from 24 countries) which was focused on introducing HE teaching skills, and, uniquely, to deliberately integrate open academic practice as a vital part of professional development for HE teachers. A qualitative, case-study approach was used in the research, based on surveys, interviews, and social media, to provide evidence about how people learned in this course and consider wider implications for teaching and learning in higher education. The evidence shows that participants who completed the course were able to learn autonomously and navigate the distributed platforms and environments. The most challenging issues were acceptance of open academic practice and difficulty in establishing an academic identity in an unpredictable virtual environment. An interesting and significant feature of the course was the support for learners from a number of MOOC ‘veterans’ who served as role models and guides for less experienced MOOC learners. The research shows that small task-oriented MOOCs can effectively support professional development of open academic practice.

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Due to the unique applications of virtual reality in many modern contexts, Second Life (SL) offers inimitable opportunities for research and exploration and experiential learning as part of a distance learning curriculum assignment. A review of current research regarding SL examined real world social influences in online interactions and what the effects on users may be. This aids students in understanding the social constructionist perceptions and worldview of those persons they may serve in social services. This suggests the importance of developing an understanding of the relationship between users’ real life (RL) and their SL. Some research has begun to reveal the effectiveness of telecommunication and computer simulation with certain clients in the fields of mental health and social work, yet there is a lack of sufficient research done within the context of virtual worlds. The current study surveyed users of several educationally and health focused SIMS (simulations) as to what motivates their SL and RL interactions. The data explores associations between users’ RL and their SL in several areas,potentially addressing the future role of educating social work students regarding research methodology in online virtual reality interactions. Implications for social work are discussed including engaging clients using incentives for social participation built into the SL milieu.

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Our study explores the influence of e-learning on individual and collective empowerment by using data collected from e-learning class participants of Korea’s Cyber-Education Center. For the survey, a questionnaire was sent to each of the 41 central ministries’ education and training officers (ETO) via email. The ETOs distributed the questionnaire to individuals in their ministries who have taken e-learning classes offered by the Cyber-Education Center during the first half of 2012. Out of more than 1,000 e-learning class attendees, 161 responded to the questionnaire survey. A set of multiple regression models was employed to explore significant predictors of government employees’ individual and collective empowerment in e-learning environments. Using existing literature on empowerment theories, a set of 16 questions was developed. A factor analysis was conducted to condense 16 individual variables into several large categories. Four factors including meaning, competence, self-determination, and collective empowerment were extracted from the 16 questions. The first three equations stood for individual empowerment and the last one for collective empowerment. Each of the four factors was utilized as a dependent variable in the multiple regression analysis. Each regression model uncovered its own set of variables that played a role in empowerment. The predictor variables of the meaning dimension were more widely split than those of the competence dimension or the self-determination dimension and collective empowerment. Only one independent variable—preference of e-learning class to offline class—was associated with all four dependent variables. However, modalities of e-learning activity, which were expected to be a significant predictor of empowerment, were not associated with any of the four dependent variables. In addition, lecture types of the e-learning class were also expected to be a significant predictor of empowerment but were only associated with the competence dimension.

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The open educational resources (OER) movement has gained momentum in the past few years. With this new drive towards making knowledge open and accessible, a large number of OER repositories have been established and made available online throughout the world. However, the inability of existing search engines such as Google, Yahoo!, and Bing to effectively search for useful OER which are of acceptable academic standard for teaching purposes is a major factor contributing to the slow uptake of the entire movement. As a major step towards solving this issue, this paper proposes OERScout, a technology framework based on text mining solutions. The objectives of our work are to (i) develop a technology framework which will parametrically measure the usefulness of an OER for a particular academic purpose based on the openness, accessibility, and relevance attributes; and (ii) provide academics with a mechanism to locate OER which are of an acceptable academic standard. From our user tests, we have identified that OERScout is a sound solution for effectively zeroing in on OER which can be readily used for teaching and learning purposes.

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The purpose of this research study was to explore the influence of Confucian-heritage culture on Chinese learners’ online learning and engagement in online discussion in U.S. higher education. More specifically, this research studied Chinese learners’ perceptions of power distance and its impact on their interactions with instructors and peers in an online setting. This study was conducted at a research university in the southwestern U.S. Twelve undergraduate students from the Confucian-heritage culture, including mainland China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong, participated in the study. This study provided evidence that the online setting benefited these Chinese learners’ engagement in class discussion, but it may increase the level of anxiety in their participation. Learning, perceived by the Chinese learners, was more instructor-centered. Instructors were viewed as authorities, major sources of knowledge, and possessed high power to students. As a result, when encountering difficulties in learning, the Chinese learners were intimidated to interact with their instructors. Instead, they tended to seek help from peers, particularly those who shared similar cultural and linguistic backgrounds.

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This study assesses the effectiveness of internet-based distance learning (IBDL) through the VClass live e-education platform. The research examines (1) the effectiveness of IBDL for regular and distance students and (2) the distance students’ experience of VClass in the IBDL course entitled Computer Programming 1. The study employed the common definitions of evaluation to attain useful statistical results. The measurement instruments used were test scores and questionnaires. The sample consisted of 59 first-year undergraduate students, most of whom were studying computer information systems at Rajamangala University of Technology Lanna Chiang Mai in Thailand. The results revealed that distance students engaged in learning behavior only occasionally but that the effectiveness of learning was the same for distance and regular students. Moreover, the provided computer-mediated communications (CMC) (e.g., live chat, email, and discussion board) were sparingly used, primarily by male distance students. Distance students, regular students, the instructor, and the tutor agreed to use a social networking site, Facebook, rather than the provided CMC during the course. The evaluation results produce useful information that is applicable for developing and improving IBDL practices.

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Unlike many other prominent leadership theories, leader-member exchange (LMX) theory does not focus on the specific characteristics of an effective organizational leader. Rather, LMX focuses on the nature and quality of the relationships between a leader and his or her individual subordinates. The ideal is for a leader to develop as many high-quality relationships as possible. This will lead to increases in subordinates’ sense of job satisfaction and organizational citizenship, as well as to increased productivity and attainment of organizational goals. LMX has been criticized for its potential to alienate some subordinates, failing to account for the effects of group dynamics and social identity, and failing to provide specific advice on how leaders can develop high-quality relationships. However, LMX has been heralded as an important leadership theory in higher and distance educational contexts because of its emphasis on promoting autonomy and citizenship, as well as its ability to complement and mediate transformational leadership styles. Recent authors have attempted to provide specific advice for leaders who want to learn how to build and capitalize on the high-quality relationships described by LMX theory.