In the previous era of open educational practices (OEP) based around distance teaching, its actors and their target group were clear to define: open universities and disadvantaged learners. In this new era of OEP linked to digitalized open educational resources, there are multiple actors and beneficiaries of OEP. This critical literature review…

This article reports the lack of epistemic diversity in producers of massive open online courses (MOOCs) through examining whose knowledges and what knowledges are forefronted in MOOCs. Through analysis of 27 semi-structured interviews, the study explored the relationship between South African MOOC designers and their open educational practices…

This article explores the role of culture and the concept of openness as they relate to learning using a massive open online course which teaches the Irish language and Irish culture to learners around the world. It explores how best to describe the meaning of such learning, and the social, material, and relational tensions that exist in such…

Interest in the adoption of open educational practices (OEP) is growing, and the strongest arguments in its favor are that the adoption of such practices has the best chances of making education affordable and accessible to all. However, engagement with such practices requires the adoption of a fundamentally different set of beliefs and value…

Various studies advocate training students prior to a peer-feedback activity to ensure high quality of feedback. Next to investing in students' peer-feedback skills, it is important to focus on the underlying perceptions since perceptions influence learning behavior. We implemented an online peer-feedback training session in a massive open online…

Distance education (DE) is a constantly evolving and advancing field, and as such, its intellectual network and dynamics need to be investigated and explored. In this regard, this study reviewed a total of 1685 articles and 51,940 references through social network analysis for a bibliometric examination of the DE field. The findings indicate that…

Open education has long been forwarded as a producer of equity. However, there currently exists a lack of critical engagement with issues of justice in open educational practices (OEP). Although the affordances of open education have potential for increasing equity, creating knowledge alongside learners is inherently rife with complexities for…

In 2012-2013, the massive open online course (MOOC) approach has been accepted by universities around the world, and outsourcing companies have been launched to provide the infrastructure for it. Current press and blog coverage of the MOOC trend is examined and the range of reactions to it, most of them enthusiastic. MOOCs vary in their…

The thesis of this paper is that the open and distance education sector is based on a framework of terminology that is typologically inconsistent and which lacks clarity, and open and distance education teaching and learning models are examined to explore these concerns. The findings of this analysis are then used to assist in the articulation of…

This article presents an empirical study of an open educational course in an online peer-to-peer university (P2PU). P2PU is a nonprofit organization offering free educational opportunities. Focus is on how peers are part of creating course content in a Web 2.0 environment. Massive open online courses (MOOCs) have evolved into two different…

This article reports on work undertaken within Phase 2 of a pilot study concerned with the design, development, and evaluation of online resources. Drawing on recent developments in the application of technology within open and distance education, these resources were structured around the principles of problem-based learning (PBL) for use with…