Financial issues regarding the sustainable production, dissemination, and use of Open Educational Resources (OER) in higher education are reviewed and proposed solutions critiqued. Use of OER produce demonstrable cost savings for students. Yet OER development continues to rely almost completely on government and philanthropic funding. This…

The authors present this interview with Joshua Kim, Director of Digital Learning Initiatives at the Dartmouth Center for the Advancement of Learning (DCAL). Dr. Kim leads Dartmouth College's efforts around online learning and digital innovation for teaching and learning. He is a well-known conference speaker and consultant in the area of…

General education is at the forefront of the challenges facing faculty and administrators as they develop initiatives to address the nationwide trend focused on college completion programs. Attempts to trim core requirements and shift courses to online environments could be one answer for providing greater course access, for improving enrollments,…

Besides the shift in community college funding from the state to the student, a number of other innovations and trends have emerged with respect to community college finances. This chapter explores some of these developments, including performance-based funding, changes in student and institutional eligibility for financial aid, changes in local…

The article addresses the question of how the assessment process with large-scale data derived from online learning environments will be different from the assessment process without it. Following an explanation of big data and how it is different from previously available learner data, we describe three notable features that characterize…

This case study relates to distance learning students on open access courses. It demonstrates the use of predictive analytics to generate a model of the probabilities of success and retention at different points, or milestones, in a student journey. A core set of explanatory variables has been established and their varying relative importance at…

Despite societal imperatives for equity--whether espoused by nation states or transnational agencies like UNESCO--current models of higher education are unequivocally failing to provide universal access. This paper seeks to explore the (cyber)spaces (un)occupied by higher education, specifically in the area of curriculum studies, arguing that the…

The last five years have witnessed a hype about MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses) presaging a revolution in higher education. Although all MOOCs have in common their scale and free access, they have already bifurcated in two very distinct types of courses when compared in terms of their underpinning theory, format and structure, known as c-MOOCs…

Assessment is an integral part of the learning process. The traditional practice of assessment has changed to meet the need of the contemporary society. In this paper assessment strategies used in Open and Distance Education are discussed and constructive suggestions are given to meet the challenges of assessment. Recently we experience a paradigm…

Some educators argue that entry standards are the most important determinants of successful completion of a university programme; others maintain that non-academic factors must also be considered. In this study we sought to investigate open and distance learning students' perceptions of the factors affecting academic performance and successful…

Open Educational Resources (OER) emerged within the context of open education which is typically characterized by the sharing of knowledge and resources and the exchange of ideas. Unisa as a mega open distance learning (ODL) university has publicly communicated its intention to take part in the use and creation of OER. As global and local…

Massive open online courses (MOOCs) have been the subject of much polarised debate around their potential to transform higher education in terms of opening access. Although MOOCs have been attracting large learner cohorts, concerns have emerged from the early evidence base centring upon issues of quality in learning and teaching provision, and…

"Tuesdays with Morrie" is a 1997 non-fictional book by an American writer, Mitch Albom, which was later made into a film with the same title. It tells the true story of sociologist Morrie Schwartz and his relationship with Mitch Albom as his protégé. When the professor is diagnosed with a terminal disease, Mitch begins to visit him at…

Swinburne University of Technology has experienced tremendous growth in open access online learning and as such is typical of the many Australian institutions that have ventured into online tertiary education. While research in online education continues to expand, comparatively little investigates students' enrolment and attrition. This research…

Scientists from five Swedish universities were interviewed about open second cycle education. Research groups and scientists collaborate closely with industry, and the selection of scientists for the study was made in relation to an interest in developing technology-enhanced open education, indicated by applications for funding from the Knowledge…