Doctor of Philosophy / Department of Secondary Education / Janice R. Wissman / This study was an investigation of mission, vision, funding strategies, and student services for distance learning as expressed by university administrators in land grant universities and state universities, and those institutions that are designated as both land grant and state universities by the state legislature. Three research questions guided the study The study employed a survey distributed through e-mail. The questionnaire was sent to 261 senior administrators; the chief academic officers, chief business officers, and chief information officers in 37 land grant and state universities and 13 institutions that are both land grant and state universities. The return rate was 30%. The institutional mission and administrator’s vision for offering distance learning survey responses were analyzed using descriptive statistics. The study also used correlation, confirmed by factor analysis, to determine if there was a relationship among the administrators’ responses regarding mission, vision, and funding. The data were analyzed with ANOVA and fishers least means difference test. These tests determined if there were differences in the administrators’ responses between the type or sizes of higher education institutions on mission, vision of administrators. The data analysis indicated that the type of institution did not yield significant differences. The difference of means test indicated there were differences in the student population size of the institutions. The responses indicated the mission or purpose for offering distance learning was to save money for the institution, and support degree completion for former students. The responses related to administrative vision show initiating a distance learning program and a being leader among higher education institutions were the reasons for a distance learning program. The content analysis method was employed to determine the roles of the administrators in the survey. The administrators’ responses related to distance learning were consistent with their roles in the institution. The study also produced results related to student services institutions provide for distance learning students, how the student services were provided, on or off campus or both locations and the funding sources for the student services.

Because distance learning (DL) programs provide students educational opportunities with minimal restrictions on location and/or time, the number of institutions that provide DL courses has grown at a tremendous rate over recent years and is projected to increase in the future. Foreign language courses through DL, however, have been criticized for limited opportunities to engage in speaking activities and to develop oral proficiency. While previous research consistently reports no significant differences, the focus of those studies has been the comparison of outcomes assessments between face-to-face and DL courses. This study analyzed the types of interactions that occurred in the virtual foreign language classroom while using asynchronous audio-based CMC, known as voice boards, to learn Spanish at a rural community college located in Southwestern Virginia, Patrick Henry Community College (PHCC). An embedded multiple-case study design and computer mediated discourse analysis were applied with activity theory to analyze the interactions holistically. During a 10-year period, the amount of students enrolled in on-line only courses or in the virtual campus at PHCC increased from 97 students in the summer 2001 session to 655 students in the summer 2011 session. These results showed a 575.3% (n = 558) increase of students enrolled in DL. Only 37.7% (n = 507) of the students attending the community college during the summer 2011 session were enrolled in only FTF courses. These increases were a result of students' needs to pursue degrees of higher education while working and taking care of family and other personal obligations. Students enrolled in the SPA 101: Beginning Spanish I course explained that employment schedules, family obligations, and financial reasons motivated their decisions for taking a DL course. When completing audio-based discussion board assignments, experimentation with the language was observed and participants took advantage of opportunities to listen to recordings multiple times before submitting responses. Forty-seven percent of the utterances were categorized as containing questions to encourage continued discussion. However, lexical chains for those utterances showed that only 11.6% (n = 11) of the utterances followed a three link chain of initial post-response-response (IRR) that represented extended conversations in the voice boards. / Ph. D.

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Abstract Corporate managers are constantly looking for more cost-effective ways to deliver training to their employees. E-learning is less expensive than traditional classroom instruction. In addition, many expenses-booking training facilities, travel costs for employees, plus employee time away from the job- are greatly reduced. Distance learning has existed for a long time. When computers became available, educators were tempted by this new means to deliver education at a distance. Today, what was once an obscure sidebar to education has become big business. This is what people now are talking about e-learning. The value of the computer may seem to be its ability to deliver information anytime and anywhere, but its value in education is potentially much more important. E-learning is fueling efforts to integrate distributed learning systems in organization. The purpose of this study is to examine the some factors that determine intention to adopt e-learning in Kaohsiung Rapid Transit Corporation. The studied system enables online or web-based learning, which has grown in popularity in the new millennium as an innovative and useful enterprising training tool. This paper takes a social, organizational, and technical approach in its investigation to identify the factors that affect intention to adopt e-learning. Regression Analysis was used to assess the relationships in the constructs. The paper presents some findings on e-learning adoption intention determinants in order to giving some suggestions to KRTC for future implementing e-learning training system.

This study examines an increasingly common distance learning context: where tertiary level and English-medium DE courses are produced, tutored and examined in one country but studied by learners in other countries and who have English as an additional language. Empirical work is drawn from a case-study of agricultural extension officers in disparate parts of Zimbabwe undertaking a professional development course which is produced and mainly tutored in the distant UK. This long-distance cross-cultural writing relationship between academics and students serves as a basis for the examination of difficulties created by taken-for-granted educational practices embedded in the course structure and materials, particularly in relation to language and academic literacy. The study examines contemporary debates around internationalised learning, including cultural and linguistic imperialism and the desirability of locally-produced courses, and provides an insight into black Zimbabwean perspectives on them. It explores a variety of contextual issues including the wider significance of DE in a southern African context, gendered learning patterns, the linguistic repertoire of the students and their academic literacy background. Drawing on grounded theory, discourse analysis, literacy as social practice and genre theories,this overseas research aims to provide the UK course producers with insight into some of the particularities of the Zimbabwean learning context and some of the learning and teaching resources which exists beyond their control and ambit. It is hoped that more multi-faceted image of some of their learners may help course producers consider more closely the differences and commonalities between course participants; it may challenge the normative pedagogy embedded in the course and prompt the producers to consider appropriate responses;it may raise the policy question of how to establish, within an asymmetrical donor-recipient situation, a north-south academic relationship of an emancipatory kind. These aims spring from the conviction that as we move towards globalised educational contexts, dominated by market leaders, significant changes and improvements in educational practice are more likely to come about as a result of an emerging reflexivity on the part of the course producers. Learners and importers of course may not have much influence over such decisions.

The purpose of the study was to examine the relationship between instructor interaction with students and retention in online classes in a rural community college classroom. The literature indicated that increased instructor/student interaction should lead to greater student satisfaction and retention in online instruction. The researcher operationalized interaction as announcements to the class, emails sent, amount of feedback given on assignments, and number of times the instructor logged into the course. Retention was measured by the number of students that successfully completed the class. Data were pulled from all online classes taught at Itawamba Community College during the fall 2013 semester. This data set included a total of 397 courses. Unique to this study was that all courses used standardized material that control for content delivery. This empirical study used a quantitative approach through a causal-comparative design. The statistics computed included descriptive statistics, Pearson’s product-moment correlation, and one-way ANOVA. In summary, the analysis did not support the research hypothesis in that there were no statistically significant differences in retention between the means of the instructors that met expected thresholds of the independent variables. Limitations in the current study may have influenced the outcome of the analysis and recommendations for further studies are discussed.

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The impact of ICT in open and distance learning is now become a common phenomenon. The rapid use of internet and other communication facilities have brought the open and distance education closer to the student community. The paper highlights the application of ICT in open and distance learning system of Assam.

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Main subjects of this thesis are distant learning and e-learning. It provides an overview of current state of distance learning in tertiary education in Czech republic, focusing mainly on informatics programs. It identifies limitations of standard e-learning systems regarding the requirements of courses on the Faculty of Informatics and Statistics at University of Economics, Prague. Practical part of this thesis is describing implementation and use of special application that provides functionality that is not provided by standard e-learning systems.