Since the turn of the millennium the national Open Universities in China and India have been integrating online learning as an additional means of course delivery. Over this period both countries have witnessed exponential growth in Internet access and a commensurate need, mandated by government, to increase enrolments in higher education with one focus placed on using networked technologies. Prevailing arguments suggest there is a growing convergence towards a universal model of higher education based on a western world culture. The question of whether online learning may support, or accelerate, such a convergence by hastening the displacement of national ideas and values is the central question addressed in this investigation. Aspects of online learning in the Open University of China (OUC) and the Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU) are compared: policy, curriculum and students’ experiences and perceptions A comparative case study methodology has been used, incorporating a mixed methods design. Data collection techniques include document analysis, interviews and surveys. The analysis of policy documents, covering the period from 1997 to 2011, and data from interviews with institutional policymakers point to differences in the experience of developing online learning in the two national institutions. The OUC has taken a top down linear approach backed by government oversight, whereas IGNOU has tended to devise policy based on the emerging experiences of instructors and students learning online. A consideration of the content of four courses in each institution, combined with data from interviews with course developers, offers a glimpse of curriculum design for online learning within the larger Open Universities. A rubric is used to quantify the extent of national and foreign content in some of the courses. The findings point to varying degrees of a national representation of knowledge in the presentation of content. The third data set presents findings of a student survey. Results point to general satisfaction with online learning at each Open University, including a positive outlook for future employment as an outcome of learning online. Additional findings indicate that students believe the representation of national knowledge in content may be compromised as the use of online learning grows. Tying these results together, this investigation aims to bring a deeper awareness of the impact of online learning within each Open University. As each institution enrolls approximately three million students, with growth expected, it is valuable for policymakers and curriculum designers to reflect on how national knowledge may be balanced with global learning content in this new and widely used medium. Finally, the fact that the two institutions are similar in infrastructure, enrolments and openness to online learning, results in insights into how each system may learn from the other as it goes forward.

Since the turn of the millennium the national Open Universities in China and India have been integrating online learning as an additional means of course delivery. Over this period both countries have witnessed exponential growth in Internet access and a commensurate need, mandated by government, to increase enrolments in higher education with one focus placed on using networked technologies. Prevailing arguments suggest there is a growing convergence towards a universal model of higher education based on a western world culture. The question of whether online learning may support, or accelerate, such a convergence by hastening the displacement of national ideas and values is the central question addressed in this investigation. Aspects of online learning in the Open University of China (OUC) and the Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU) are compared: policy, curriculum and students’ experiences and perceptions A comparative case study methodology has been used, incorporating a mixed methods design. Data collection techniques include document analysis, interviews and surveys. The analysis of policy documents, covering the period from 1997 to 2011, and data from interviews with institutional policymakers point to differences in the experience of developing online learning in the two national institutions. The OUC has taken a top down linear approach backed by government oversight, whereas IGNOU has tended to devise policy based on the emerging experiences of instructors and students learning online. A consideration of the content of four courses in each institution, combined with data from interviews with course developers, offers a glimpse of curriculum design for online learning within the larger Open Universities. A rubric is used to quantify the extent of national and foreign content in some of the courses. The findings point to varying degrees of a national representation of knowledge in the presentation of content. The third data set presents findings of a student survey. Results point to general satisfaction with online learning at each Open University, including a positive outlook for future employment as an outcome of learning online. Additional findings indicate that students believe the representation of national knowledge in content may be compromised as the use of online learning grows. Tying these results together, this investigation aims to bring a deeper awareness of the impact of online learning within each Open University. As each institution enrolls approximately three million students, with growth expected, it is valuable for policymakers and curriculum designers to reflect on how national knowledge may be balanced with global learning content in this new and widely used medium. Finally, the fact that the two institutions are similar in infrastructure, enrolments and openness to online learning, results in insights into how each system may learn from the other as it goes forward.

Brian Jackson rose from a working-class background, through a scholarship to Huddersfield College, to gain a first in English at Cambridge. Though now largely forgotten, his was one of the most innovative voices to influence the major changes in educational thought and practice which occurred during the 1960s and early '70s. This thesis examines his achievements and attempts to explain his failure, ultimately, to find a role for himself. Brian Jackson's main talent was to give substance to ideas, but once a thing was running he seems to have lost interest, anxious for a new challenge. In 1962 he published, with Dennis Marsden, Education and the Working Class: a seminal influence on the acceptance of comprehensive education by the Left. He went on to become director of the Advisory Centre for Education [1962-1974] which he built into a powerful lobbying force, using the media to good effect. A notable success was his creation of the Universities Clearing House scheme in conjunction with the Sunday Times. In 1963 he founded the National Extension College in Cambridge as a prototype for the Open University, pioneering all the new techniques the OU was to use subsequently. He became increasingly concerned with pre-school care and founded the National Children's Centre in Huddersfield in 1975, which spawned a TV Series for childminders; Other People's Children. In 1978 he pioneered the Childcare Switchboard, a forerunner of Childline, on Radio Nottingham, which led to his founding Contact Inc. in Australia in 1979. Jackson wrote innumerable articles and books, including Streaming and Childminder, on education and childcare. From 1975 he repeatedly called for a Minister for Children, a position he possibly craved, but sadly, as the economic climate hardened in the late 1970s, his career tailed off, his drinking increased, and he died, unemployed and virtually unemployable, on a 'Fun Run' for the NCC in Huddersfield, aged 50. His considerable talents were probably spread too widely for his own good and his status as a 'loose cannon' prevented him from pursuing a more formal, and profitable, career

No description available.

Thesis (M. Arch.)--University of Hong Kong, 2000. / Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Jāmiʻat al-Qāhirah, 1979. / Title on added t.p.: Toward an Arab Open University through the Arab Space Network. Abstract and contents page also in English. Includes bibliographical references (p. 423-442).

Thesis (M.Arch.)--University of Hong Kong, 2000. / Includes bibliographical references. Also available in print.

This study is an investigation of the importance of present and preferred institutional goals as perceived by the faculties and administrators of two open university systems in Bangkok, Thailand. The purposes of the study are twofold. The first is to identify and analyze the similarities and differences of present and preferred goal priorities. The second is to determine differences and similarities for five institutional goal areas between the two systems and by administrator and faculty groups.

When I began the study, I was a full-time nurse educator. I taught student nurses at a hospital-based nursing school under the Hospital Authority. I also had a part-time job with the Open University of Hong Kong (OUHK) from 1998 to 2008, teaching subjects in the Bachelor of Nursing (NU305) program, Higher Nursing diploma courses (NU112C), and Master’s in Education (E804/E814) program. Currently, I am a nursing officer in an intensive care unit (ICU), responsible for training and quality assurance. As a former nurse educator in a hospital-based nursing school, a trainer, and a part-time tutor at OUHK, I was interested in learning more about the trends and changes related to the teaching and learning of adult learners. I observed that in many state policies and academic discussions, “lifelong learning” has replaced the term “adult education.” Indeed, interest in the idea of lifelong learning has recently grown (Smith 2002). Nonetheless, I did not clearly understand the idea of lifelong learning. and how it is different from adult education. There is also no universal definition of lifelong learning; rather, it is interpreted by various stakeholders in different ways (Kumar 2004). This aroused my interest in exploring the nature of lifelong learning, its implications to me as a tutor and a trainer, and the process by which empirical and qualitative data on lifelong learning can be collected.

The purpose of this study was to determine the attitudes of students and instructors at Sukhothai Thammathirat Open University (STOU) toward a distance learning system for agricultural extension and development programs for participating in the ASEAN community. It was also to determine the difference in attitude between undergraduate students and graduate students toward 9 factors involving the STOU distance learning system and programs. The study used mixed methods. Descriptive survey and focus groups were used to collect quantitative and qualitative data. Data were analyzed by descriptive statistics and the Mann-Whitney U test. STOU students were employed adults who lived around Thailand who had average and above average levels of knowledge about the ASEAN Community and Open University. Graduate students had higher levels of knowledge than undergraduate students. Students and instructors learned about the ASEAN community via television programs and websites. Students and instructors had a positive attitude toward the program and distance learning system. Textbooks, workbooks and printed-based packages via post-mail, e-Learning and e-Tutorial sessions via the internet, and face-toace sessions via face-toace were very appropriate methods and delivery channels. Electricity, a personal computer, and internet access were important devices to have when participating in distance learning classes. Students and instructors had average and above average skill levels with all devices skills except for English skills and skills about satellite devices. There were 5 different attitudes among undergraduate students and graduate students about students’ qualification, program objectives, program structures, adequacy of learning system, and adequacy of educational services. Recommendations for program improvement and to improve distance learning systems are applied through the 4 perspectives of the Balance Scorecard: student perspective, financial perspective, internal process, and learning and growth perspective. The model of distance education of Open University for agricultural extension program when participating in the ASEAN community (AMEI model) includes 4 stages: analysis stage, management stage, evaluation stage, and improvement and extension stage should be used for distance learning program improvement in Thailand and ASEAN countries.