Thesis (Ph. D.)--Illinois State University, 2002. / Title from title page screen, viewed January 26, 2006. Dissertation Committee: Patricia H. Klass (chair), Darryl A. Pifer, Glenn Schlichting, Mark Walbert. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 137-143) and abstract. Also available in print.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Illinois State University, 2002. / Title from title page screen, viewed January 5, 2006. Dissertation Committee: Beverly Rich (chair), Sherry Meier, Norma Presmeg. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 164-176) and abstract. Also available in print.

Thesis (M.Ed.)--University of Waikato, 2006. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 134-[138]) Also available via the World Wide Web.

Thesis (Ed.D.)--Duquesne University, 2006. / Title from document title page. Abstract included in electronic submission form. Includes bibliographical references (p. 164-181) and index.

Thesis (Ed.D.)--University of West Florida, 2004. / Title from title page of source document. Document formatted into pages; contains 173 pages. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 2000. / Typescript. Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 128-139). Also available on the Internet.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the weaknesses of current e-learning environment development models and to establish a comprehensive e-learning environment development model (EEDM). In the literature study I established the components of a comprehensive EEDM by looking at five existing models. The main concern in all of the models is the lack of configuration management, which lead to the investigation of other characteristics that an EEDM should have to be described as a comprehensive model. I then used these characteristics to establish the E-learning Dome - a comprehensive EEDM. The E-learning Dome consists of three layers, namely the Infrastructure layer, E-learning administration layer and the Course development layer. The Quality Dome encompasses the combination of these three layers. Through the use of case studies to test the feasibility of the E-learning Dome I concluded that the E-learning Dome is successful as a comprehensive EEDM. / Theoretical Computing / M.Sc. (Information Systems)

M.Ed. / Information and communication technologies are effecting widespread changes in all spheres of life including the educational context of South African higher education. While a great deal of emphasis is placed on the issue of bandwidth, and rightly so, the broader context in which the mediation of learning with computers takes place is still to a large degree neglected. It is within this context that the learning experiences of first time e-learners who had participated in the online semester course Education 2A at the R.A.U. University were examined. These students initially appeared to experience great difficulty adapting to the mode of participation in e-learning activity, suggesting that there was a mismatch between the values and priorities of learning as mediated by the web medium and the epistemology of learners situated in cultural practice. The initial problem of struggling to adapt to e-learning, was contextualised as a reciprocal process of interactivity in which the e-learner establishes a relationship with the cultural practice as the result of epistemological, methodological and ontological change. Sociocultural and activity theory provided the main theoretical foundation of this inquiry. In this theory there is a distinction between operations, actions and the overall activity that governs these and that situate the actions. The inquiry was therefore motivated by the need to understand and give substance to the learning experiences of first time e-learners within a systemic view of human computer interaction, as opposed to a cognitive approach to systems design (Kapetelinin in Nardi, 1996:46). Consequently, the inquiry examined the dynamic, reciprocal relationship of interactivity as mediated by the web medium, and epistemological, methodological and ontological transformation of the elearner, as she interacts in this ecosocial system. Motivated by the nature of the research problem and the socioconstructivist theoretical framework which framed my thinking around this problem, the inquiry was designed as a component of a larger action inquiry (Henning, Fortuin, Grobler & Brown, in progress), based on the principle of "communicative rationality" as proposed by Habermas (Ewert, 199 I :34) and conducted as qualitative and interpretive research. It was aimed not so much at monitoring and evaluating the course, but more at capturing and assessing the nature of student learning, specifically the processes of student communication and reflection in their lived experience in the course.

This project develops a collaborative telecommunications project called Habitats Online. Review of the literature indicates that collaborative telecomunication projects, like Habitats Online, engage students in rich learning experiences and establish a network of future citizens who have a greater understanding of our environment and global communications. This master's project specifically addresses these issues.

E-learning refers to computer-based learning experiences, self-paced or instructor-led, supported and enabled by information technology. Virtual Learning Environments (VLEs), as a major form of e-learning systems, are increasingly adopted in universities and educational institutions for supporting various types of learning. Student engagement is critical for successful teaching and learning in VLEs. In existing VLEs, feeling isolated without adequate supervision from teachers may cause negative emotions such as anxiety. Such emotions may in turn significantly weaken students'motivation to engage in learning activities. In addition, the lack of effective interaction in learning activities also results in poor performance and engagement, even dropouts from online courses. In this thesis, we explore a set of approaches and tools to enhance student engagement and interaction in e-learning environments: (1) extract valuable information from the user posts in online course forums to advise the content organization of web pages; (2) instantly monitor and visualize students' interaction statuses in instructor-led learning; (3) identify and highlight the hotspot time slots and contents of the lecture recordings; (4) dynamically provide biofeedback-based visualization via wearable devices to reduce students' anxiety in self-paced learning.;We present a page-segmentation-based wrapper (eCF-wrapper) designed for extracting learner-posted data in online course forums. It consists of a novel page segmentation algorithm and a decision tree classifier. We also develop a web-based interaction-aware VLE (WebIntera-classroom), which employs a ubiquitous interactive interface to enhance the learner-to-content interactions, and a learning analytics tool to instantly visualize learners'interactions in learning activities. Additionally, we propose a high--granularity Learning Analytics Engine (hgLAE) to play a lecture recording, identify hotspots in a lecture recording and raise students'awareness of these hotspots. A questionnaire survey, interview and case study were conducted to investigate the instruction effect of WebIntera-classroom. Besides, we develop a physiologically-state-aware self-paced learning environment (FishBuddy) to alleviate anxiety and promote student engagement in self-paced learning by using wearable technology. The between-groups evaluation result shows that FishBuddy is useful in promoting student engagement (i.e., the consistency of engagement), and the students' self-reports indicate that FishBuddy is helpful for reducing anxiety and experience of isolation during the self-paced learning exercises.;Finally, the thesis is concluded with a discussion on the future work. Keywords: Virtual Learning Environment; Learning Analytics; Interaction; Engagement; Wearable Technology.