This opinion piece seeks to define and contextualise educational terms that are used, and appear to be misused, in contemporary academic literature and practice. It aims to explore the concept that these three words, "open," "flexible," and "distance," fall into the categories of policy, mode of learning, and models…

Mexico's national university (UNAM) is a public mega university with a 46-year history in open education. This article presents an analysis based on the open, online, flexible provision of technology-enhanced higher education (OOFAT) model, developed by Orr and his colleagues (2018). The aim of this analysis was to characterize UNAM's open and…

COVID-19 provided an opportunity to experiment with alternative delivery mechanisms for a medical education programme offered through open and distance learning with face-to-face training as an essential component of the programme. Non-availability of hard copies of the course material (92%) and lack of communication from the university (32%) as…

On 11 March 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the outbreak of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) to be a pandemic. As a result, the OpenWHO.org online platform, which serves as WHO's learning hub for emergencies, was tested for the first time on its core purpose of scaling up trusted public health information in a global emergency.…

The concept of Open Education (OE) is based on the philosophy of e-Learning which aims to provide learning environment anywhere, anytime, and for anyone. One of the main issue in the development of OE services is the availability of the quality assurance mechanism. This study proposes a metric for measuring the quality of OE service. Based on…

The main purpose of this study is to explore the effects of Industry 4.0 on resources (specialization, rationalization, preparatory work, and capital-intensive techniques) in the field of open and distance learning. Industry 4.0 is a period in which a great and rapid change is experienced, has a wide and deep impact that can affect business lines…

This study evaluates a two-week MOOC delivered on FutureLearn as part of an MSc in Nursing accredited by Coventry University to establish whether learners are demonstrating transformative learning. Evaluation is in the form of a rubric which is designed using Mezirow's theory of Transformative Learning as a theoretical framework, alongside the…

Generalizability of the value of methods based on learning analytics remains one of the big challenges in the field of learning analytics. One approach to testing generalizability of a method is to apply it consistently in different learning contexts. This study extends a previously published work by examining the generalizability of a learning…

This article cross-examines the views of the university staff and selected students on institutional challenges in managing and delivering learner support for in-service teachers engaged in distance education in Uganda. A qualitative approach using in-depth interviews and reflective logs provided the study framework. The results showed several…

This article presents an analysis of tracking data collected over eight years on 43,000 users on "Icelandic Online (IOL)," seven open, guided online courses in Icelandic as a second language. The main objective in this study is to (a) map out retention for all the "IOL" courses, (b) compare retention on the same course…

As long ago as 1992, Greville Rumble was writing about the "competitive vulnerabilities" of single-mode distance teaching institutions [universities]. In the intervening years the challenges he described have only intensified, especially so as advancing information and communication technologies have enabled increasing numbers of…

This paper will share Discover Palestine, an interdisciplinary Massive Online Open Course (MOOC) and the first MOOC to be created in Palestine, by the E-Learning Centre, Faculty from the Department of Geography, and Department of Tourism and Archaeology from An-Najah National University in Palestine. The paper traces the process of development of…