This qualitative study examines the pedagogical perspectives and priorities underpinning the course design practices of 10 academics engaged in 'open and distance e-learning' (ODeL) at a small single-mode distance education (DE) institution in the Philippines. It also looks at the impact of teaching with Web technologies on course design practices, and its implications for faculty development. The study found that these academics' use of Web tools and resources relates to the importance that they give to independent learning and collaborative learning. However, the study also found that academics hold orientations to teaching and learning with Web technologies that do not necessarily conform with the extremes identified in the literature. Rather than subscribing to either an independent learning approach or a collaborative learning approach, which are presented in some studies and theoretical discussions as opposing approaches underpinned by contrasting orientations to learning, some teachers adopt different pedagogical approaches for different learning contexts, and/or they attempt to balance seemingly oppositional pedagogical approaches. This flexibility comes from their having multiple orientations to learning, which develops from an awareness of the need to take into account, and address tensions among, a range of design factors, including the diversity of learners, disciplinary contexts, and curricular goals. This flexibility in design practice may also be understood as a manifestation of the convergence of an open learning philosophy, distance education pedagogies, and e-learning technologies. Based on these findings, an ODeL teaching skills framework is proposed as part of a holistic and integrated faculty development programme in ODeL. Also outlined are some strategic directions for policy development and organisational restructuring for effective ODeL implementation.

The current study evaluated online distance learning from learners' and teachers' perceptions through a descriptive case study of a Foundations basic computer skills course, which followed the ADDIE instructional design model within the institutional context of Sultan Qaboos University (SQU) in Oman. Following SQU strategic plan guidelines for 2025, three objectives were achieved: reinforcing the need for transformation of educational delivery methods, exploring students' perceptions of online distance learning and identifying both successful and impeding factors involved in implementation of online distance learning. A blended qualitative and quantitative exploratory approach was taken in conjunction with mixed methods for data collection from document analysis, interviews, focus groups and online surveys. Research questions identified learners’ and teachers’ perceptions of five attributes of online learning: learner-autonomy, interactive dynamics, flexible accessibility, effective feedback and multimedia simulations. Based on these attributes, results of the study provided institutionally related instructional design standards for effective online distance learning at SQU. In considering the feasibility of online courses at SQU in the future, the results indicated that learners would take online courses provided that they received training, technical support and better internet services. Teachers stipulated that they would require pedagogical and technical support to enable them to facilitate online courses. Also, incentives, flexible schedules and clear policies regarding intellectual property rights were highly demanded. This thesis consists of six chapters. The first chapter gives a historical background of e-learning providing the relevant demographic and sociological context. The second chapter reviews e-learning modes of delivery and related learning theories. The third one bridges the theoretical foundation with empirical implementation of an online course at SQU. Research methodology is described in chapter four, followed by detailed analysis of results in chapter five. The final chapter concludes the thesis by recommending actions for better implementation of online learning at Sultan Qaboos University.

No description available.

Over the last two decades or so a growing number of education providers have established offshore campuses with the intent of offering the same quality of education that is provided onshore. Yet these new initiatives bring with them their own set of challenges, including whether or not it is possible to deliver the same quality, and what ways of working best ensure this. This case study explores the extent to which spatial distance impacts the management of offshore campuses. It identifies and evaluates some of the initiatives undertaken by education providers to reduce its impact and, ultimately, asks whether the current corpus of education management literature holds relevance to the management of spatial distance. A study of a school with 23 branches spread across the Indian Subcontinent, the Middle East and East Africa was carried out with the intention of identifying and assessing the means employed by it to reduce the impact of physical distance. Interviews with members of the head office as well as senior school staff garnered their views on the impact of distance and their assessment of initiatives to overcome it. The school's manuals were also studied for an insight on how spatial distance was formally perceived and addressed. The theoretical understanding of spatial distance afforded by topology was used to analyse the data gathered. The head office is considered as a mediator that connects various nodes into a network. This enables it to dissolve spatial distance, extend its power and make its leadership and authority felt. The head office then utilizes various management initiatives as intermediaries, with the intention of sustaining and perpetuating the network. Organizational norms and values were found to be the most influential intermediaries, but even they require tangible and robust management systems in order to be effective. The study shows that physical distance still has an impact, and its influence needs to be considered when formulating policies for offshore campuses. It is also evident that the education management literature does not adequately consider physical distance as an independent influence, and thereby does not specifically address the management of offshore campuses. It needs to compensate for this by incorporating sound practices from various strands of management literature as well as from other fields such as topology in order to be able to address the challenges of managing spatial distance.

The research involved action plan for the improvement of Distance Education Institute for quality mission of Eastern Mediterranean University (EMU) based on European University Association (EUA) norms. My project contributed online pedagogy and teaching process for online tutors. Research aimed to stress the importance of communication process and investigate roles of tutors in facilitating communication to construct knowledge in online learning-teaching process. The research has inductive nature that action research approach was employed to change professional practices of tutors through collaborative activities. Therefore, focus group, trainings, in-depth interviews, self-report and research diary were used as data collection techniques in this qualitative research. Content analysis was implemented to analyze triangulated data. The research results revealed that tutors were novices on online pedagogy and they had no prior knowledge on the importance of communication and socialization to help students construct knowledge in their learning process. My research puts forward to gaining in-depth understanding on how to teach online courses based on Salmon’s five stage model. My research project provided change and development which contributed professional development of the tutors in online pedagogy. As online pedagogy is one of the critical factors to reach out quality improvements, my research filled the gap on the roles of tutors in facilitating communication to construct knowledge by practical and collaborative work of the professionals. In this respect, I as insider researcher and the participants gained reward of the professional learning and experiences from the learning cycle of the participatory action research.

With the adoption of social technologies in mainstream society, post-secondary educators have been adopting social technologies as alternatives to traditional learning management systems, perceiving them to be more open, participatory, student-centered, and reflective of socio-constructivist approaches to learning. At the same time, as we open up our boundaries of learning, researchers have suggested that these spaces can be uncanny, unsettling or troublesome as they challenge traditional, hierarchical learning models and their more familiar and comfortable references, roles and norms of the academy. How we incorporate these networked learning principles into the design of open online learning spaces, and how these spaces then are enacted as learning spaces is the focus of this project. A virtual ethnographic case study of an open boundary course was conducted to investigate how the available learning spaces are perceived and used by both teachers and learners, particularly as they intersect formal and informal contexts. To answer the overall research question "What effects do open online learning spaces have on the development of a learning culture in networked learning environments?" a two-tiered analytic framework was developed. The first tier examined the everyday practices within the course, including interactions between material and social spaces, through examination of the structures, communications and resulting practices. The second stage used a spatial lens, based on Boys' (2011) adaptation of Lefebvre's spatial triad (1991), to explore the tensions between how space is perceived (daily practices), conceived (designed), and lived (enacted) by participants. One finding is that participants all valued direct pathways for their learning experiences and felt that too many resources and routes lead to confusion and disorientation. Finding and maintaining coherence was a challenge for both instructors and participants, with each wrangling with the principles of openness, autonomy and social dialogue to meet their own needs and create different learning spaces. For the instructors this meant providing wayfinding and mooring points through the signalling of pathways, active participation and a repurposing/remixing of the different tools and structures available to them. The designed environment was inscribed with the familiar indicators of formal educational spaces (timeframes, structured activities, roles, active facilitation, educational metaphors, familiar asynchronous and synchronous communication) and provided a "homely" feel (Knox, 2014b). The participants chose different pathways depending on their expectations and learning needs (assessed/non- assessed), made visible their struggles with technology, and stuck to the course "home" space where visibility, recognition and meaningful connections were more likely to be encountered. This allowed for the development of a small cohort of engaged, active learners who developed an open and supportive learning culture where they could take risks in their own learning processes. The spatial analysis highlighted that there is a constant shifting and renegotiating within the learning spaces we try to create, both as designers and as learners. In this case tensions related to visibility/anonymity, assessment, flexibility (pathways, time), resources, conceptions of openness, and complexity of the learning environment, all had an impact on how the learning spaces were perceived or enacted. The hierarchically defined spaces created through digital tools, even those created by social technologies that many consider inherently more open and participatory, are only permeable and accessible in certain ways, and to certain types of practices. As the results of this research highlight, these underlying structures, with their own set of rules, ownership, and hierarchical ordering affects the resulting spaces, dictating how learners and teachers can shape and interact with them. Those considering designing learning experiences with more open, permeable boundaries will need to ask critical questions about how resulting tensions may create different types of enclosures or barriers, and flow this impacts on the spaces for learning.

E-learning has found its way into various areas of our lives and, as technology has developed, the ways in which e-learning has been delivered have become more varied. Researchers and e-learning developers can become captivated by new technologies and the facilities that these technologies can offer. However, increased availability does not necessarily mean better facilities or results. In the early days of e-learning, materials were generally just text-based and the use of multimedia elements such as audio was very limited, whilst current materials generally incorporate much multimedia and often result in materials that are ‘all singing all dancing’. However, there has been little research into the benefits of such ‘entertaining’ learning materials over the older-style text-based learning materials. The research described in this thesis explored the use of music and animation within an e-learning environment and the effects it might have upon a learner - in particular how music and animation might affect a learner’s emotional state and learning attainment. The model of flow was used to determine the emotional state of the learner. Flow can be used to describe focused motivation, when a person is fully immersed in a task. Several experiments were designed and carried out to determine the effects of including music and animation in an e-learning application. It was found that while the learning attainment was unaffected by the inclusion of the music and animation, learners’ flow experiences were negatively affected. These findings highlighted the importance of the design phase of learning material and it should also be considered that adding more multimedia elements does not necessarily lead to improved learning or enhanced learner satisfaction.

The Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) has surfaced as one of the most prominent developments in digital education in recent years, attracting significant media attention and involving some of the world’s elite universities. MOOCs are fully online courses that attract high numbers of enrolees, often in the tens of thousands, and are typically publicised as offering free participation. To date, critical analysis of the MOOC has been rare in the academic literature: this thesis will address the need for more nuanced discussions by critiquing and theorising MOOCs from the position of critical posthumanism. Posthumanist challenges to the foundationalism of the humanist subject have been well established around ecological (Pedersen 2010, 2011, Braidotti 2013), cultural (Badmington 2000a, 200b, 2003) and philosophical (Pepperell 2003, Fuller 2010) agendas, however this approach is underrepresented in digital education, and largely absent in studies of the MOOC. Thus, the MOOC project has tended to assume problematic and uncritical forms of humanism, maintaining an orthodox educational position in a field that claims innovation and disruption. The theoretical framework of critical posthumanism will be utilised to highlight the limitations of the humanist subject, and suggest a value in looking beyond this framework as the underlying rationale for MOOC education. This thesis draws upon discourse analysis, visual analysis and a post-qualitative methodology that challenges the assumption of a knowing subject in social science research to consider a broad view of the MOOC, as well as a focussed examination of two specific courses. Firstly, the corporate promotion of MOOCs is shown to tend towards a colonialist orientation that assumes a universal desire for education, and adopts a strategy of maximising global reach. This strategy is underpinned, not by the quest for territory, but for the personal data of MOOC participants. Secondly, emerging research and theories of learning that are attempting to understand the behaviours of MOOC participants are suggested to adopt normative views of participation that prohibit difference and establish particular routines as the dominant and privileged form. Thirdly, orthodox notions of authentic and sedentary educational space will be examined and shown to pervade this emerging online format, working to maintain, rather than counter, elitism and inaccessibility. Finally, notions of hybrid educational space, contaminated communities and monstrous (re)articulations of the human subject will be drawn on in suggesting alternative ways of viewing and engaging with the ‘massive’ education of the MOOC.

This thesis makes use of activity theory as a lens to explore how professionals learn. The study focuses initially on my professional understandings arising from the application of Cultural Historical Activity Theory (CHAT) to the eChina-UK project funded by HEFCE in the UK, an attempt to develop collaborative elearning projects in British and Chinese universities, and secondly on purposeful interviews with project staff about their professional learning in the project. The thesis begins by setting the scene for the project showing how it came about. The literature review explores CHAT and allied issues of Adult Education considering how adults may learn in both formal and informal contexts. It also contextualises the project by giving background on Higher Education, China and distance/e-learning. The research questions that it addresses are: 1. What roles do artefacts have in mediating collaborative working on elearning materials? 2. How do boundary crossers/brokers impact on a project of this type? 3. How do different cultural histories have an impact on the disposition that the ‘developers’ have to artefacts and materials? 4. What and how do the subjects of the activity systems learn? What role, if any, do artefacts play? What role, if any, do the brokers play in the learning? This practitioner case study makes use of a variety of data. The initial data consisted of field notes which were part of the project process. Theoretically driven hunches that surfaced from these data led to further purposeful data collection via interviews investigating the following: Virtual Learning Environments (VLEs), a materials design template and pilots; and boundary crossers. Also considered is the nature of the professional learning that occurred for eight core participants in the project. The thesis in addition explores the constructs of transfer, transformation and expansive learning. The study proposes a refinement of our understanding of these constructs. It also demonstrates how important and significant boundary objects are to successful international project work along with the boundary crossers who support the development of the artefacts. In addition, it shows how an engagement with transfer, transformation and expansive learning contributes to the professional development of the subjects in their respective activity systems.

This research has been undertaken in response to an average 50% attrition rate from a technology enhanced distance-learning course in applied art and design. It studies the participants’ lived experience over a 12-week period from enrolment to the end of the first of twelve modules. The commercial provider recruited 23 mature, female participants from 8 different countries for this City & Guilds certificated course. Data was collected utilizing Interpretive Phenomenological Research methodology (IPA) via two open-ended telephone interviews with participants. The twin roles of the study author as researcher and director of the educational provider were reviewed and a methodology for disaggregation proposed. ATLASti software was used to aid data coding and retrieval. Four key themes emerged from the data; Confidence, Persistence, Support and Timing, which were each subsequently divided into 3 sub categories. Literature searches moved from education to psychology as the study progressed. Implications for further discussion encompass pre-course testing, provider conflict of interest, innovative methods of support and increased legislation. Findings centre around the commencement process and the need for provider instigated advice at the beginning of the course experience, as well as the limitation of design content during the first module and the accuracy of pre-course information and the participant’s engagements and understanding of it. The study also found a lack of correlation between early tutor/student support and retention and several planning activities undertaken by a sub-section of the participants, which appeared to be successful. This study has also contributed to the literature on retention, highlighting the participant’s personal experiences rather than the quantitative retention data more usually associated with retention studies and has demonstrated that interventions intended to decrease course attrition levels may be required at an earlier stage than previously thought and also across a wider subject range than previously recognised.