The main goal of this project is to analyze structure, possibilities, principles of creation, users requirements and extend functionality of the present system (ViPS), which is designed for distance education. This system gives possibilities to Lithuanian institutions of science and education to supply distance studies in all over the country. Besides that, it gives possibility of life-long learning to all people. System is oriented to synchronous education, but it also supports asynchronous. Material of lectures contains of video records and lecture material (usually slides) made by professor. ViPS can be used by four types of users: lecture listeners (outside users), professors, institution and system administrators. Users activities are: • Outside user – has an opportunity to look through the list of courses, participate in lectures, get news by email, execute search, change data of profile and accession. • Professor – despite outside user’s functions, can also give lectures, describe courses and lecture material (metadata). • Administrator of institution – despite professor’s functions, has a possibility to attach non-grouped users to institution, give special access rights (can change user status to professor) to users, register institution resources. • System administrator – despite institution administrator’s functions, can create groups, send system news to users, create licenses, register institutions, control user groups. The modern CASE tool “Rational... [to full text]

The key aim of the designed system is to create the e-teaching and e-learning tool to be applied for the studies of the module “Designing Hypertext Systems”, taught at the Faculty of Business and Technologies of Utena College. The major objective of the system is to facilitate the studies of the abovementioned module and ease the communication between professors and students, who are not able to attend lectures due to reasonable excuses, as well as part-time students. Seeking to clarify the relevance of the designed tool, as well as the need for it and, in pursuance of its efficiency, the following directional issues have been analysed: institutions that organise training based on distance technologies; spheres that cover the majority of offers for such training; tools that are accessible to all the persons requesting them; the number of offers in relation to particular title of the designed system “Designing Hypertext Systems”; its accessibility to common users and conformity of its contents to the contents of the mentioned module; advantages and disadvantages of distance education; possibilities to make use of the system for presumptive users of the system, their motivation, requests and proposals; supply of website design tools, educational material for e-teaching, as well as training methodology. In addition to that, the analysis of the already existing decisions has been also carried out. In the result of what, conclusions have been drawn on the fact that designing of... [to full text]

This study explores how to integrate faculty-initiated Internet-facilitated international academic partnerships into their local university environments. Recently some faculty have begun initiating international partnership activities which carryout their university's research, teaching, and service missions. These partnerships (including courses, projects, or entire programs) are considered by their initiators to benefit both faculty and student development. Faculty see the Internet as enabling them to construct interactive and collaborative virtual forums where disperse student and faculty bodies can co-engage in exciting international research, teaching, and learning opportunities. This study aims to encourage the development of Internet-facilitated international academic partnerships so that more faculty in all disciplines are supported by their local institutions to better integrate their partnerships. Presently, partnerships are not well integrated. Impart this is because the Internet as a communication tool is relatively new phenomenon. However, it is also due to the tendency for faculty level partnerships to be overlooked by higher levels of university administration. As a result, the value of Internet partnerships has not yet been explored in relation to their local institutional missions. This study therefore consults faculty with experience partnering online in order to garner faculty insights pertaining to partnership integration. The results help to determine (1) core characteristics of these faculty-level partnerships (2) faculty motivations for initiating them (3) university environments implicated by integration and (4) identify faculty support and development opportunities appropriate to support integration.

<p>The study attempts to understand how distance education practices influence the learning of calculus. Understanding student learning in a distance education environment is an important factor to consider in improving the learning experiences of students who for one reason or the other opt not to study in conventional institutional of higher education. On one hand, understanding student learning may illuminate the influences that the learning environment has on student learning and on the other hand, it may inform on how learning experiences can be improved. The aim of this study is to acquire a deeper understanding of the diverse manner in which distance students learn calculus, Specific focus is also placed on the distance education contect of the Zimbabwe Open University (ZOU) influences student learning. The study describes a group of student's experiences of learning calculus in the ZOU distance education environment.</p>

Distance Learning (DL) is recognized to be a contemporary mode of education delivery. It is used to respond to the need of human resource development in developing countries. The evolution of Information Communication Technology (ICT) is seen as an opportunity for the development of DL. DL through ICT is perceived as an opportunity for meeting most of the challenges of higher education systems in Sub-Sahara Africa in general, and in Rwanda in particular. Planning and implementing DL as an innovation in the education system of Rwanda are processes which need to be understood if DL is to expand and contribute to human resource development in different sectors. The aim of this study was to analyze the process of planning and implementing DL in tertiary health professional education in the Kigali Health Institute and in tertiary teacher education in the Kigali Institute of Education, in order to understand the dynamics of planning and implementing DL, and to suggest the way forward for the success of those two programs. Concepts taken from innovation Havelock's problem solving strategy (1982) and social system theories in particular Owens's open sociotechnical systems for schools (1998) were combined to form the framework which guided this study. A qualitative case study, using a comparative descriptive approach, was the research design. The participants were drawn from (a) policy makers in the ministry of education, ministry of health, ministry of public services and the Rwanda Information Technology Authority (RITA); (b) management in the participating institutions; (c) the teaching staff, especially those who were involved and/or are still involved in the process; (d) students; (e) and members of professional regulatory bodies. Purposive and theoretical sampling was used to select the participants. Twenty one informants were interviewed. Three focus group discussions of six, four and eight participants respectively were conducted. In addition document review and analysis, and physical artefacts served also as means of data collection. The results showed that systematic planning with a comprehensive document and strategic plan as outcome of the planning process are essential for the successful implementation of distance learning in Rwanda. Supportive and responsive institutions and suprasystems are indispensable to a conducive environment for planning and implementing DL in Rwanda. From the results, recommendations for the progress of the two programs that were part of this study were put forward. A framework of planning and implementing DL in Rwanda was developed based on these results. This framework may be used by policy makers, educators and other parties interested in the development of DL in Rwanda. / Thesis (Ph.D.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, 2005.

This thesis presents a systematic review regarding the way technology supports adult learning in communities of practice. It presents the systematic review procedure that was developed, based on NBS CRD (2001) protocol, from publication sources relevant to the topic. It includes the identification of research from an initial question that is: how does technology support adult learning in communities of practice. In addition, it presents a search strategy, a study quality assessment, a data extraction strategy and a synthesis of findings. Because most of the pertinent research is qualitative, a typology of qualitative research and a critical appraisal checklist for quality assessment were designed and are presented. The results presented have synthesized evidence from studies that meet certain quality criteria and they are discussed in terms of (a) the kinds of technologies applied in communities of practice, and (b) successful features of the technology that seem to contribute to learning.

Distributed learning is becoming an increasingly common method of further education in post-secondary institutions and programs across Canada and internationally. Academic libraries are not immune to this trend, and many are reviewing and revising their teaching methodology. All learners require information literacy instruction that is relevant, engaging, and embedded in curriculum; in a distributed learning environment, however, the design and delivery of that instruction may need to be adapted to respond to the challenges of instruction to distributed learners. Through a literature review of distributed learning models in academic libraries and consultation with faculty and librarians at the University of Saskatchewan, this research will assist in determining distributed learning models and instructional design best suited for the provision of information literacy instruction within this environment. Although this research focused on academic libraries, this session will be relevant to anyone who is interested in providing instruction outside of a classroom. / Slides from a presentation at the Saskatchewan Library Association annual conference in Saskatoon, SK, in May 2013. Notes from the presentation are included on the slides which were not part of the original presentation.

The purpose of this study was to define the private sector's receive-site coordinator's role and current practice associated with the day-to-day management of a distance receive site by describing what private sector receive-site coordinators do in practice. Descriptive data were collected in six areas: demographics, private sector receive-site coordinators' reporting relationships, distance education equipment and usage, tuition support for students at receive-site locations, private sector receive-site coordinators' knowledge of distance education, and the private sector receive-site coordinators' current practice.Many organizations in business and industry in the private sector invest in distance education systems and programs as a means of providing educational opportunities for their employees. These organizations assign the duties of managing their receive-site location to an employee in their organization. The polices and procedures of organizations receiving distance education programs, the job level of the person assigned the receive-site coordinator responsibilities, the knowledge level of the receive-site coordinator, and the practices of the receive-site coordinator are variables that influence employee participation in distance education programs. Additionally, those variables impact distance education university administrators in administering and marketing the university's distance education programs to organizations. Yet, there is very little literature that speaks to the distance education receive-site coordinators' role or the knowledge and skills required to manage a distance education receive-site location.By conducting this research, the private sector receive-site coordinators' practice was described. It was concluded that private sector receive-site coordinators are a non-homogenous group of mostly training and development professionals with undergraduate degrees and have the responsibility of managing the day-to-day activities of receive-sites by incorporating the duties of a private sector receive-site coordinator with their otherday-to-day work activities. The private sector receive-site coordinators' job responsibilities span a variety of tasks that include marketing programs, helping students overcome problems, assisting with course logistics, and installing, operating, and in some cases, maintaining distance education equipment. It was also concluded that university administrators viewed the role of the private sector receive-site coordinator as a key element of the distance education system. / Department of Educational Leadership

The purpose of this study was to describe and improve understanding of adult students' experiences of learning in an interactive computer-mediated communications context in a distance education environment. Within a constructivist perspective, the theoretical framework for this study was based on collaborative learning theories.The study setting was an eight-week, Internet-based undergraduate/graduate distance education course, Sociology of Poverty, sponsored by a medium-sized midwestern university. The computer-mediated course was designed by the instructor to support active and collaborative learning among students at a distance.Study participants included two graduate students and five undergraduate students who volunteered their participation. One professor delivered course and Web-site instruction, aided by one technical assistant. In this descriptive study, responses of participants were collected through a series of individual interviews, field observations, student learning journals, and the researcher's field journal. Evidence collection focused on learners' responses to the synchronous and asynchronous (e-mail messaging) computer-mediated communications of the distance education setting.Identified were cognitive and affective learning strategies, and descriptions of students' meaningful receiving and expressing experiences. Two cognitive learning strategies were identified: Management of personal resources and management of technology. Two affective learning strategies were identified: Management of self and management of others. The computer-mediated educational context was found to have influenced students' cognitive and affective experiences of learning, and synchronous computer conferencing was judged a potentially motivational and effective tool for interactive learning in a distance education environment. Important impacts on students' learning experiences included learner characteristics, the design of the Web-based course and its computer-mediated components, the structure of interactivity in the computer-mediated communications, and the moderation of the weekly synchronous computer conferences. Conclusions and recommendations of this study focused on these five influences.Implications for future Internet-based distance course design and development included the need for opportunities for students to establish connections with peers early in the course and the need for learner input into course content. Further research requirements revealed included student collaboration in a computer-mediated environment, student-teacher power relations, moderation of synchronous computer conferences, and the integration of online experiences with community-based field experiences. / Department of Educational Leadership

The purpose of this ethnographic case study was to explore how different distance learning modes and environments affect the design and implementation of a crosscultural, university-level, distance education course. The case chosen was a U.S. -Taiwan collaboration that used H.323 videoconferencing and Web 2.0 technologies. Through participant observation, document analysis and interview, this study investigated the factors that influence the instructor's pedagogical practice with new technologies in relation to the cross-cultural aspects. It also examined the various types of interactions that occurred as consequences of the distance learning modes and the contexts of the course. The findings provided a portrait of factors and relationships that affected the implementation of the curriculum and the enablement of technology affordances. They suggested that the instructor’s personal value and intrinsic motivation, well-supported technology framework, and a long stable international partnership helped sustain her engagement in cross-cultural distance education (CCDE). While the instructor’s high self-efficacy prompted her to idealize technology affordances in the CCDE course, her limited technology literacy hindered the enablement of these affordances and resulted in different outcomes. In addition, difference in the teaching styles between the instructor and her international partner, unbalanced learner preparedness, and the Western valueladen learning environment were also factors that contributed to the gap between the idealization and the realization of the CCDE course. Implications and suggestions for future practice and research were provided in relation to the literature, as well as the contexts of cross-cultural/international distance education. / Access to thesis and accompanying PDF permanently restricted to Ball State community only / Department of Educational Studies