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 educational practices (OEP) as a research field is relatively new. One aspect that has received limited attention is the impact of using open educational resources (OER) on the development of OEP. This article, based on a doctoral study (Pulker, 2019), considers teachers' activities when reusing and adapting OER, with a view to providing…

The purpose of the study was to examine the impacts of course activities on student perceptions of engagement and learning in online courses. Using eight interactive course activities as indicators of course interactivity, we conducted a latent profile analysis to cluster students into different groups. Based on students' perceptions, we observed…

In the current higher education context, offering online programmes is seen as an effective means to recruit more international students. However, supporting online international students studying at a distance is not a simple task for both universities and tutors. The problem mainly stems from a lack of theoretical understanding of online…

Alongside the increasing popularity of distance education is a growing body of literature on anti-oppressive pedagogies (Breunig, 2009). Our critical review of literature explored and critiqued how educators enact anti-oppressive pedagogies in online classrooms. Our search and screen process yielded 2952 studies and a final set of 10 that met our…

Course design influences online student performance and engagement. A total of 222 instructors and instructional designers responded to Martin et al.'s Online Course Design Elements instrument to examine the frequency of use of design elements. Among the five factors in the instrument, the interaction and communication subscale had the lowest mean…

Open, flexible and distance learning has become part of mainstream education in China. Using a blended learning program in a Chinese high school as the case, this study adopted data-mining approaches to establish predictive models using personality traits. Results showed that, for students with high OE and low extraversion, and students who are…

This systematic review investigated the contexts, critiques, and challenges of using heutagogy (Hase & Kenyon, 2000), an emerging instructional approach that emphasizes the self-determination of learners, to develop lifelong learners. A total of 33 peer-reviewed publications published between 2000 and 2019 were aggregated and synthesized, and…

This study examined how the role of digitalization is framed in the strategic development plans of 75 top universities in China. Findings show that digitalization as perceived by these universities features instrumentality (e-campus construction and application) and modernization (sustaining and efficiency innovations in teaching and learning), a…

There is limited evidence of the effects of culture and context on student readiness for e-learning, and how these might interact with gender. This study addresses this gap by studying the effect of culture and context on the readiness of high school students to use e-learning in a unique setting: an education system in which male and female…

As online programs for nursing education continue to grow, nursing faculty must develop strategies for engaging with and supporting students in this form of distance learning. The concept of caring, which is central to nursing education, overlaps with teaching and social presence concepts from the community of inquiry model in education. After…

The authors recognized a close similarity between practices used in online genealogy research and those common in online education. Uses of a popular online database service were examined within a peer instruction community dedicated to researching a family history topic. Three community subgroups were divided into leaders, who base their work on…

An important part of online courses is the delivery of instruction via video lectures. Video lectures should use media effectively to reduce extraneous load and maximize cognitive processing, thereby helping students to learn. Instructors may be able to reduce extraneous load by varying the number of audio and visual media used. This study…

This paper presents findings from a study into the value of lecture captures for online postgraduate courses. There has been little scrutiny of the role of on-campus lecture capture in online courses. We addressed this gap by exploring online distance learning students' perceptions of lecture captures through the lens of the community of inquiry…

Online learning is crucial to success for higher education institutions. Whilst the existing literature predominantly focused on its economic advantages, we focused on its inclusivity. At an online learning unit of a UK university, the number of students with disabilities (SWD) is three times higher than the national average. Having a degree makes…