Background: Degree apprenticeships (DA) help employees gain new knowledge and skills by allowing them to study towards a university degree while working full time. For these programmes to be effective, the learning design should be adapted to the needs of these students, who are goal oriented (i.e. they want to gain only knowledge that can be…

This paper examines the pedagogical integration of Virtual Microscopes (VMs) in Virtual Learning Environments (VLEs), to identify best practice and improve online pedagogy. It has captured the perspectives of 12 Health and Earth Science university teachers, through in-depth interviews, about the current integration of the VM in online teaching,…

Higher education (HE) in the United Kingdom (UK) has been on a trajectory of marketisation for much of the 21st Century (see Marginson, 2018). These developments reflect international policy trends toward a more pervasive neoliberal ideology that has sought to transform the global HE sector into a capitalist market subject to buyer-seller…

Purpose: There is an increase globally of students using technology to support their learning. The purpose of this paper is to outline the technical aspects of adaptive learning and contribute to the development of pedagogy that incorporates this method in teaching and learning. Design/methodology/approach: This is a technical review article that…

This rapid systematic review aims to examine emerging evidence on the effects of COVID-19 on educational institutions and assess the prevalence of e-learning changes in the sector. This paper reviews literature on learning, teaching, and assessment approaches adopted since the COVID-19 outbreak, and assesses the impact on the sector, staff, and…

Digital natives is a term used to describe current higher education (HE) students, whose lives are proliferated by digital technologies. To cater to the needs of this new generation of students, HE institutions increasingly adopt digital tools such as virtual learning environments (VLE) and social media (SM). Little is known, however, about the…

There has been a growing interest in how teaching might be informed by "learning design" (LD), with a promising method for investigating LD being offered by the emerging field of "learning analytics" (LA). In this study, we used a novel LA for LD methodology to investigate the implementation of LD in an online distance learning…

International students contribute to the academic and cultural life of universities yet they often face discrimination and isolation. Studies highlight that support from the host students can make the difference between an easy or difficult transition. This article is part of a larger project about host student perceptions of international…

Expectations of online masters students commencing their studies has been under-researched, as have the challenges of transition from undergraduates learning on-campus to postgraduate online students. The study described here investigates student expectations of this transition, development of resources for academic skills teaching, and student…

This article describes a usability evaluation that was conducted among student users of improved learning areas (sites) designed as part of the WebLearn Improved Student Experience (WISE) project conducted at Oxford University (UK). WebLearn is the university's internal brand for the Sakai open source virtual learning environment (VLE). The…

Universities globally are aspiring to grow through investing in the delivery of online learning programmes. However, the attrition rate for online learning is high. It has been noted that those students with a sense of belonging to their course experience increased enjoyment and reduced anxiety and are therefore less likely to withdraw. Yet too…

In recent years, the use of Technology Enhanced Learning (TEL) has risen exponentially throughout higher education in the UK. Whilst TEL is an umbrella term for a range of technologies, evidence suggests that in the UK, TEL is usually delivered via the medium of Virtual Learning Environments (VLEs) for the provision of lecture materials and…

The education of children in public, or Local Authority (LA), care, known in the United Kingdom (UK) as looked-after children (LAC), is supported by government initiatives to reduce the attainment gap that exists between LAC and their non-LAC peers. These children often find remaining in education a challenge, are twice as likely to be permanently…

This article reports findings of an 18-month research project, funded by the Higher Education Academy in the United Kingdom (UK), to develop understanding of pedagogical differences in employing emerging technologies with transnational doctoral students. The focus of the research is a Professional Doctorate course delivered by a UK-based…

There is an urgent need to develop an evidence-based framework for learning analytics whereby stakeholders can manage, evaluate, and make decisions about which types of interventions work well and under which conditions. In this article, we will work towards developing a foundation of an Analytics4Action Evaluation Framework (A4AEF) that is…