The terms 'open' and 'distance' are no longer helpful for advancing approaches to education traditionally served by open institutions. A proposal to reframe the terms 'open' and 'distance' is made: 'open', it is suggested, needs to be linked more explicitly to education that is increasingly available, inclusive, scalable, and sustainable.…

In this article, ambassadors of the International Council for Open and Distance Education (ICDE) Open Educational Resources (OER) Advocacy Committee (OERAC) provide a snapshot of regional and global Open Educational Resources (OER)initiatives. This committee has been active since 2017 with membership renewed biannually. The ambassadors work to…

Innovative time allocation and timetable organisation can support the aim of providing students with individualised learning opportunities and deeper engagement with learning. Traditionally, time within schools is maintained and distributed through Western approaches to administration and organisation, which are socially and culturally produced…

The purpose of this paper is to share insights gained from the discovery, design, and delivery phases of creating a three-tiered model of non-academic learning support in open, distance, and flexible learning (ODFL): "Learner Engagement and Success Services (LESS)", at Open Polytechnic | Te Pukenga, New Zealand. Presented as a case…

The mid-term evaluation of the Partnership for ODFL in the Pacific Project was commissioned by the Commonwealth of Learning to examine the initial two years of the five-year activity. The evaluation was undertaken by Standard of Proof, the MFAT MERL panel, providing specialist services in monitoring, evaluation, measurement and research and…

New Zealand's Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade has funded the Commonwealth of Learning (COL) to implement a project to contribute to enhanced capacity and efficiency of Pacific education sectors through greater use of innovative delivery mechanisms and technology. This report provides an improved mentorship model for the capacity development…

The experiences of course facilitators in connectivist-type MOOCs are poorly reported. Yet there is evidence that the values and beliefs of facilitators have an important impact on the learning experiences of participants, and that reducing their interactions with students may also reduce the effectiveness of the course. This study aimed to…

The New Zealand Certificate in Early Childhood Education and Care (Level 4) programme was designed and developed when a Level 4 early childhood education qualification became mandatory for all educators working with children and families in the New Zealand early childhood education home-based sector. This occurred at a time when Open Polytechnic…

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 is based on a keynote talk delivered at the biennial DEANZ Conference at the University of Waikato in Hamilton, New Zealand, in April 2016. As highlighted in that talk, we have entered Education 3.0--an age of vast resource abundance and extensive opportunities for learner empowerment. During the past decade, we have seen the emergence…

This research aimed to inform institutional leaders by producing and disseminating a system wide view of what tertiary education might look like in Aotearoa New Zealand, five years into the future. The researchers were responding to a challenge in a speech at the DEANZ 2010 conference by a highly respected national leader (Dr. Peter Coolbear). The…

By investigating how educational practitioners participate in activities around open educational practices (OEP), this paper aims at contributing to an understanding of open practices and how these practitioners learn to use OEP. Our research is guided by the following hypothesis: Different social configurations support a variety of social…

Many Open and Distance Learning (ODL) providers report that their students are prone to lower rates of retention and completion than campus-based students. Against this background, there is growing interest around distance-specific learning support. The current research investigated the experiences of students during their first semester as…

In today's world where tuition fees continue to rise rapidly and the demand for higher education increases in both the developing and developed world, it is important to find additional and alternative learning pathways that learners can afford. Traditional education as we have known it has begun to change, allowing for new parallel learning…

Open educational resources and open education practices have the potential to lower costs and increase participation in higher education. One hundred and ten individuals from higher education institutions around the world participated in a survey aimed at identifying the extent to which higher education institutions are currently implementing open…