The University of Waikato brought the Internet to New Zealand, was one of the first Universities in New Zealand to graduate students who had completed a bachelor's degree online, and recently won an award for innovative use of video software in an online classroom. The video software was created by a company that had its beginnings within the University. However, the use of the Internet for teaching and learning in the University has reached a plateau in the last few years, as measured by the daily page views of the online platform (Moodie, 2004), the number of courses taught online and staff teaching online remaining fairly constant. This thesis sets out to investigate why the use of online teaching at the University has not increased to a point where a majority of staff are using online teaching to at least supplement their classroom teaching. Previous research into online teaching and learning focused heavily on technology barriers and lack of access to computers and the Internet. It is the position of the researcher that this lack of access is no longer a valid reason for academics not to use online environments for teaching and learning in a tertiary environment. This study hypothesized that enhancing their teaching using online technologies may be related to the culture of different subjects, disciplines and Schools of study. Accordingly three groups of lecturers from different Schools within the University were invited to participate in focus group interviews. Questions asked were related to their approach to teaching in their subject areas, the culture of their Schools and the University, as well as their reflections on teaching online. The study found that there was a strong relationship between the use of online technologies and subject areas as well as the culture that exists within the School of study. The influence of University management on the use of online technologies was also highlighted. But more surprising was the relationship between trained teachers in the University, and their uptake and use of online technologies. To take advantage of the changing student population, with their greater awareness and use of computing and new technologies, the University of Waikato, and indeed many other similar institutions, are now at a technological and educational crossroad. Decisions need to be made by senior management regarding the importance of the Internet and emerging media technologies in shaping the teaching and learning environment of tomorrow's University.

Online learning is a wonderful opportunity for students who cannot attend classes at conventional times and places to further their education. However, to some extent, accessing and sharing information is often quite different and potentially more difficult for this particular group (e.g., they may lack access to the campus library). For this reason, it is important to appreciate both how the students are seeking and sharing information in this environment, as well as what drives these information behaviours. Understanding these processes will better enable instructors, librarians, and other relevant parties to facilitate information access to this population (e.g., through in-depth database training and/or better technology tools). With that in mind, this research asked: 1) In what types of information seeking and sharing behaviours do online learning students engage? 2) What motivates online learning students to both seek and share information? 3) Can a theoretical model of students motivational orientations as they apply to their information behaviours be developed? To answer these questions, the Teacher-Librarianship by Distance Learning Program was examined as an in-depth case study. A grounded theory approach was employed to enable the development of the motivational theory. Data were collected exclusively through in-depth, semi-structured interviews, though with two distinct groups of people: 15 students and 3 key informants. The students were asked to reflect on their experiences accessing and sharing information in the online setting as well as what they thought drove their information behaviours, while the key informants provided context around the program itself and offered their insights into how they believe the students interact with information. Overall, this study revealed that both electronic and local resources are key to these students information seeking successes. Furthermore, the results suggest that personally or professionally relevant assignments provide students with the greatest motivation to seek information for their coursework. Students in this online learning environment were inclined to share professional, academic, and personal information with others because they believed that this online learning environment fostered a culture of sharing.

Teaching and learning online has become widespread but for some teachers there are a number of challenges involved.  This study looks at politeness strategies used in teacher-student and student-student interaction, to what extent they are used and what effects these politeness strategies have on the communication as a whole.

As the coming of digital knowledge economic era, knowledge and human resources have become the most important capital of organization. Therefore, how organizations can preserve and develop knowledge is every business¡¦ concern. Because the cost of traditional training is high due to the limitation of time, space and facilities, ¡§e-Learning¡¨ can provide timely, cost-efficient, as well as high-quality lessons if there exists caring and sharing organizational culture to support organizational learning. In this study, the Technology Frame theory suggested by Orlikowski & Gash is adopted to analyze a business that implements an e -Learning system. The analysis shows that three groups, including IT staffs, HR staffs and users, exhibit positive attitude to the e-Learning system although they have different interpretations on this system. A f urther analysis shows that business strategy, culture of organization, government sponsorship, and the human resource quality influence the technology frames of IT staffs, HR staffs and users.

Since its inception, online continuing education programs have experienced great variation in the degree of participation among students. There is a growing body of literature suggesting that a sense of community is a possible predictor of participation in educational programs. Since online instruction is not conducted face-to-face, direct social interaction is missing. However, there exists a variety of online instructional methods that are designed to create social interaction and thus facilitate and foster a sense of community among participants in these programs.This dissertation sought to identify a model that would suggest what variables related to a sense of community might predict participation among students enrolled in an online continuing education program. This investigation included development of an instrument to measure participants' feeling of a sense of community, and examination of the relationship of the instrument scores with three components of participation (overall participation, interactive participation, and non-interactive participation).This investigation was conducted on a two-year online continuing medical education program at a university located in the southwestern United States. The participants were physicians, nurse practitioners, and physician's assistants representing three different cohorts.Item analysis of the instrument to measure sense of community revealed a Cronbach's alpha coefficient of .89. A principal components analysis using an orthogonal (varimax) rotation produced four factors (subscales) with Cronbach's alpha coefficients ranging from .70 to .86.The overall sense of community and four subscale scores were then compared to participation scores of participants. Preliminary analyses revealed no gender or cohort differences. A significant correlation was found between communicating for understanding subscale scores and interactive participation scores. Significant positive correlation coefficients were also found between the overall sense of community score and overall participation score as well as interactive participation score.This preliminary investigation indicated that the sense of community instrument developed for this study is a reliable measure including four factors which constitute a definition of sense of community. Further, it revealed that interactive participation in the course may be predicted from communicating for understanding and that sense of community is positively correlated to overall participation and interactive participation, but not to non-interactive participation.

This paper gives an account of themes that emerged from a preliminary analysis of a large corpus of electronic communications in an online, mediated course for intercultural learners. The goals were to test assumptions that electronic communication is internationally standardized, to identify any problematic aspects of such communications, and to construct a framework for the analysis of electronic communications using constructs from intercultural communications theory. We found that cyberspace itself has a culture(s), and is not culture-free. Cultural gaps can exist between individuals, as well as between individuals and the dominant cyberculture, increasing the chances of miscommunication. The lack of elements inherent in face-to-face communication further problematizes intercultural communications online by limiting opportunities to give and save face, and to intuit meaning from non-verbal cues. We conclude that electronic communication across cultures presents distinctive challenges, as well as opportunities to course planners.

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Accessibility is a very important criterion to make online learning inclusive to students with different abilities. According to Burgstahler, Corrigan and McCarter (2004) unless design of the courses are accessible to all students, including those with disabilities, the ultimate goal of distance learning to make education available to everyone cannot be accomplished. However, accessibility is rarely a priority for online course developers and students with disabilities are not considered as a large group (Treviranus and Roberts, 2006). This exploratory case study investigated the experiences of the students with visual impairment in online learning environments with regards to media used in their courses with the intent of providing suggestions for accessible media design. Media included text, visuals (pictures, diagrams, charts, and graphs), audio, and multimedia (video and animation) used in online learning environments. This study used a purposive sampling technique and participants who are visually impaired, who had an online course experience, and who are older than 18 years old were included in the study. A semi-structured interview protocol was developed and participants were asked about challenges they experienced and what worked well for them in terms of media in online learning environment. Because of the lack of scientific research examining design of online learning for students with visual impairment, this dissertation fills an important research gap and also makes contributions to the field of Instructional Design and Technology by providing students' perspectives and suggestions for accessible design. Suggestions provided in this study is valuable in terms of designing accessible online courses and that there is a lack of information and guidance for answering the needs of students with visual impairment in online learning environments. / Ph. D.

This study examined the perceptions of satisfaction, engagement, comfort, and confidence level with Web 2.0 technologies as learning strategies in online courses, as well as differences based on gender, age, race, income, and a correlation among these factors and digital skills. The researcher survey design was used for this study, and was sent to all adult learners enrolled in an undergraduate degree-completion or graduate program. The population of 2,100 adult learners was asked to participate in the study, and 134 adult learners completed it. Both descriptive and inferential statistics were conducted in order to address the research questions. The analysis consisted of one sample t tests and analysis of variance (ANOVA) in order to determine the level and differences in perception of Web 2.0 use and correlation. One sample t test indicated that respondents agreed or strongly agreed that they were satisfied, engaged, comfortable, and confident with Web 2.0 technologies. There were no significant differences among participants based on gender, age, income, or race in their overall satisfaction. When looking at individual survey items, results indicated that a female's comfort level in virtual meetings in online courses was significantly lower than males. The findings also showed that the Hispanics and other ethnic race groups' comfort level using social networking sites was significantly higher than that of the Caucasian and African American participants. However, the Caucasian groups' comfort level was significantly higher in social networking sites and instant messaging than that of African American groups. Moreover, both Caucasian and African American participants' confidence levels were significantly higher using Web 2.0 technologies at work than Hispanics'. Additionally, the study checked for correlations among digital literacy, satisfaction, engagement, comfort, and confidence, and positive correlations were found. An increase in confidence and satisfaction was associated with an increase in engagement, and increases in satisfaction were associated with increases in comfort. To summarize, most adult learners can learn and acquire digital literacy skills based on their satisfaction, engagement, comfort, and confidence in using Web 2.0 technologies in online learning. Digital literacy skills are needed for adult learners to participate in a digital and global society.

The purpose of this research was to examine the connections between personality types as illustrated by the Myers Briggs Type Indicator and the desire for social presence components within a technology based learning environment. Participants in the study were undergraduate and graduate students enrolled in an educational technology program at a public university in the State of Texas. The study employed a mixed-method qualitative approach that utilized a paired comparison evaluation, a personality assessment, and semi-structured interviews. Results showed that the components of organization and feedback were thought to best foster social presence in technology based learning environments and that there was no real difference between the personality types of introverts versus extroverts and judgers versus perceivers.