The intent of our 2014 article titled "Moving Through MOOCs: Understanding the Progression of Users in MOOCs" was to present evidence and to stimulate evidence-based discussion about the progression of users through MOOCs. It is then a pleasure to respond to those who reacted to the article. Most attention in our response is given to the…

Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) as a new approach to distance education, which originated from the open education resources (OER) movement, are becoming widespread throughout the world. Over time, early versions of cMOOCs have undergone changes in terms of use, name and structure. In their short life, MOOCs have been categorized into different…

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…

Open learning is becoming a critical focus for K-12 technology-supported programs as the importance of digital literacy and digital freedoms for all learners grows. This article describes current open learning policy, open educational resources and potential implications for open practice and ends with suggestions for future research in open…

The first comprehensive, research-based textbook on Internet-infused education, "Educational Psychology and the Internet" offers students an accessible guide to important issues in the field. Michael Glassman begins with an overview of the history that traces the evolution of the Internet and its significance for education. He outlines…

In the conventional system of education, a student can regularly interact with teachers and peers and effectively and smoothly carry on with the learning process. However, in the Open and Distance Learning (ODL) system, students have to learn by themselves with the self-instructional materials and with the minimum guidance received from…

The act of instruction may be conceptualized as consisting of four elements: learning outcomes, learning resources, teaching and learning activities, and assessments and evaluation. For instructors in higher education, the way they manage the relationships between these elements is what could be considered the core of their instructional practice.…

Although less well established than in other parts of the world, higher education institutions in German-speaking countries have seen a marked increase in the number of open educational resource (OER) initiatives and in government-supported OER funding in recent years. OER implementation, however, brings with it a unique set of challenges in…

This response to Perna et al. provides an alternate approach to research on massive open online courses (MOOCs). We argue that a student-centered, theory-driven conceptualization and methodological approaches allow us to move beyond descriptive statistics and into a deeper understanding of MOOC learners. Examples using a teacher development MOOC…

Started in 2008, the new Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) paradigm has brought challenges and innovation at all levels of education, aiming to respond to the most pressing learning needs, generated by the new development policies and the rapid evolution of technology. This paper reports on a project proposed by a group of universities and…

Research into open education has identified a "high number of participants" and "unpredictable mixed abilities" as factors responsible for the relatively weak presence of language Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs). This contribution presents a model for open online language courses that aims to bridge this gap. The tangible…

The 1998 paper by Martin Mühlenbrock, Frank Tewissen, and myself introduced a multi-agent architecture and a component engineering approach for building open distributed learning environments to support group learning in different types of classroom settings. It took up prior work on "multiple student modeling" as a method to configure…

Addressing the gap between global open educational resource (OER) proliferation and the slow adoption of OER and open educational practices (OEP) in Australian higher education, this paper focuses on a capacity-building project targeting academics, academic support staff and educational developers. The conception, design, development, piloting and…

Technology is changing our world. The advancement in science and technology has propelled a drastic change in nature and structure of the modern world. Events that look weird or impossible years back are part of "normal" things in our contemporary world. Education has had its share of the paradigm shift in the anal of technological…

Educational relations between societies and cultures that begin with benevolent intentions can come to be seen as threats to national autonomy and local preferences. Indeed, side by side with the growth since the first years of this century of Open Educational Resources (OER) there has been worry about their impact on global educational…