This article evaluates the role of the Online Faculty Development and Assessment System (OFDAS), created at universities in the Canary Islands, Spain, in staff development. The evaluation indicates that the system helped staff in learning to teach curriculum and teaching capacities. The tasks, online resources and opportunities for discussions…

Inverness Research studied the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) Seminars on Science program for eight years, from its inception in 1998 to 2006. In 2009, Inverness Research conducted additional studies of the AMNH's new online course, The Solar System. This paper presents teacher survey ratings for The Solar System, along with profiles of…

Universities are quickly moving from brick and mortar toward online classroom settings. The online setting provides students with increased accessibility and flexibility to attend classes they would normally be unable to attend. Unfortunately, for those students who never attend classes on campus, many campus resources are not accessible. Students…

Lack of accessibility in the design of e-learning courses continues to hinder students with vision impairment. E-learning materials are predominantly vision-centric, incorporating images, animation, and interactive media, and as a result students with acute vision impairment do not have equal opportunity to gain tertiary qualifications or skills…

Despite the fact that e-Learning exists for a relatively long time, it is still in its infancy. Current e-Learning systems on the market are limited to technical gadgets and organizational aspects of teaching, instead of supporting the learning. As a result the learner has become deindividualized and demoted to a noncritical homogenous user. One…

Like many other universities around the globe, the University of Calgary is preparing to offer its graduate programs through distance delivery. The MEd TESL program, a course-based master's degree in Teaching English as a Second Language, offered through the Faculty of Education, is piloting the first of its courses by distance. Designing ESL…

Websites that accompany science courses typically aim to provide easy access to learning materials, and to facilitate student-instructor communication. We tested whether these aims were achieved in two web enhanced, lower division undergraduate biology courses in an Israeli college. We collected data on the students' attitudes through pre- and…

Semantic Web and Adaptive Hypermedia come from different backgrounds, but it turns out that actually, they can benefit from each other, and that their confluence can lead to synergistic effects. This encounter can influence several fields, among which an important one is Education. This paper presents an analysis of this encounter, first from a…

Trend watching reports are an indispensable resource in the e-learning domain. Many HRD departments consider these reports as essential cornerstones for the development of their e-learning strategy. But what is the quality of the forecasts made in these reports? In this article, several methods of forecasting trends are discussed, resulting in a…

This paper considers the role of quality assurance in e-learning; reflecting on the conditions necessary for successful e-learning. It reviews some of the current international work on quality assurance in this area and goes on to consider the ways in which the quality of a process or activity can be assessed--focusing on the use of benchmarking…

Schools and universities all over the world are continuously exploring ways to use the web technology in improving teaching effectiveness. The use of course web pages, discussion groups, bulletin boards, and e-mails have shown impact on teaching and learning in significant ways, across all disciplines. e-Learning has emerged as an alternative to…

Podcasting facilitates the timely delivery of digital audio content such as MP3 files to a user's desktop, as it becomes available. The authors believe it holds tremendous potential as a low-cost, low-barrier tool for mobile ubiquitous learning, given the large uptake of portable music players. This paper explores some of the possibilities for…

With the advent of the knowledge era, teacher education needs to prepare teachers to face the changing technological contexts and to model pedagogies and tools for better forms of learning. Despite much enthusiasm about the roles of technology in education, its role in transforming teacher learning, in ways aligned with advances in the learning…

This paper elaborates on the importance of a strategic foundation when digital learning or knowledge management (KM) solutions are planned and developed. It looks at some key issues of e-Learning and knowledge management (KM) through discussing the various stages (technologies) and potential benefits of e-Learning; the state of the e-Learning…

This paper describes a model of online learning communities characterized by online mentors (OLCOM), which has been implemented at a large southeastern state university. The OLCOM is a virtual online learning community, which incorporates online mentors to assist online teaching and facilitate online learning along with other members in the OLCOM.…