Faculty satisfaction is considered an important factor of quality in online courses. A study was conducted to identify and confirm factors affecting the satisfaction of online faculty at a small research university, and to develop and validate an instrument that can be used to measure perceived faculty satisfaction in the context of the online…

A diploma mill is commonly recognized as an entity that will award a degree for substandard academic work. However, there is no universal agreement among different higher education institutions as to what constitutes minimum standard academic work or minimum knowledge and skills required of graduates. The author states that many of the negative…

Grounded in the theoretical approaches of experiential learning and inquiry-based learning, adventure learning (AL) is a hybrid distance education approach that seeks to transform the experiences of students by having learners explore real-world issues and pursue answers to their own questions in an authentic, anchor-based environment. In this…

The cross-cultural experiences of Chinese international students in Western countries have been subject to intensive research, but only a very small number of studies have considered how these students adapt to learning in an online flexible delivery environment. Guided by Berry's acculturation framework (1980, 2005), the investigation discussed…

Fully online courses are becoming progressively more popular because of their "anytime anywhere" learning flexibility. One of the ways students interact with each other and with the instructors within fully online learning environments is via asynchronous discussion forums. However, student engagement in online discussion forums does not…

Like many universities worldwide, the University of Cape Town (UCT) in South Africa has joined the open educational resources (OER) movement, making a selection of teaching and learning materials available through its OER directory, UCT OpenContent. However, persuading and then supporting busy academics to share their teaching materials as OER…

Teachers' influence on students' learning motivation is a well-researched topic. Nevertheless, the majority of such studies are situated in the conventional learning context despite the rapid growth of distance language learning. This study set out to investigate tutors' influence on students' learning motivation in the Chinese distance language…

Digital technologies have been used increasingly in open, distance, and flexible learning to both facilitate learning and depict learning designs. While the portable nature of a learning design once captured in digital form appears to offer limitless possibilities for sharing and reuse, dissemination initiatives have failed to thrive. This may be…

To better understand their perceptions of optimal tools and strategies for success, this research analyzed the experiences of learners and instructors in an online distance education environment. A qualitative constant comparative analysis methodology supported by an appropriate conceptual framework guided the study. Data were collected over…

The use of the Web to deliver open, distance, and flexible learning has opened up the potential for social interaction and adaptive learning, but the usability, expressivity, and interoperability of the available tools leave much to be desired. This article explores these issues as they relate to teachers and learning designers through the case of…

Distance and blended collaborative learning settings are usually characterized by different "social structures" defined in terms of groups' number, dimension, and composition; these structures are variable and can change within the same activity. This variability poses additional complexity to instructional designers, when they are…

Over the last decade, online distance education has become a common mode of study in most states in the USA, where it is known as virtual schooling (VS), but many people have misconceptions about it. Pre-service teachers' personal histories as students and their preconceptions, misconceptions, and concerns influence pre-service teacher training…

Imaginary worlds have been devised by artists and commentators for centuries to focus satirical attention on society's problems. The increasing sophistication of three-dimensional graphics software is generating comparable "virtual worlds" for educational usage. Can such worlds play a satirical role suggesting developments in distance…

The principle of equality states that it is bad for some people to be worse off than others. In the context of distance education, this principle is violated on those occasions where on-campus students have access, not only to all the resources available to distance education students, but also to face-to-face tutorials. This is because the…

The rapidly expanding range of options available for innovative e-learning approaches based on emerging technologies has given renewed importance to teaching and learning issues that have long been familiar to distance educators. These issues arise from the separation between learners, and between teacher and learners, which occurs when learning…