This paper presents the open learning initiatives of the Science Education Institute of the Department of Science and Technology to overcome certain barriers, such as enabling access, cost of replication, timely feedback, monitoring and continuous improvement of learning modules. Using an open-education model, like MIT's (Massachusetts Institute…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to evaluate issues of different scripts in the same record (in MARC21 and Chinese machine-readable cataloguing (CMARC)) and Chinese internal codes (i.e. double-byte character set) when implementing Koha. It also discusses successful efforts in promoting the adoption of Koha in Taiwan, particularly the…

Open educational resources and open educational practices are being increasingly used around the globe to train and support professionals in areas where funding and resources are scarce. This paper evaluates the open educational practices (OEP) of three global health projects operating outside academia--the International Association for Child and…

This paper describes a study of success factors in the introductory semester of liberal studies blended courses offered at the bachelor of science level. The influence of student participation in the online course environment was examined, as measured by the number of times students logged into the learning management system (LMS) and average…

This paper describes an observational study of the introduction of Sakai's Learning Management System (LMS) into several liberal arts courses at a women's college in the Middle East. Student participation in the CLE was tracked over the course of the semester and summarized by their number of logins and average session length. These measures were…

Scientific visualisations such as computer-based animations and simulations are increasingly a feature of high school Science instruction. Visualisations are adopted enthusiastically by teachers and embraced by students, and there is good evidence that they are popular and well received. There is limited evidence, however, of how effective they…

This paper aims at providing an objective evaluation and transformation of Higher Education in the Arab World with a focus on its contribution to knowledge and human development. It argues that despite the great expansion in the number of higher education institutions and the great increase in the number of students enrolled in them, the needs and…

This paper reports in brief the pilot study, Distance Education Regulatory Frameworks, undertaken by the International Council for Open and Distance Education (ICDE) in 2010-2012 and the implications for openness for higher education in Southwest Pacific/South East Asia region nations. The project developed a methodological approach to…

This paper presents a new methodology to develop remote laboratories for systems engineering and automation control courses, based on the combined use of TwinCAT, a laboratory Java server application, and Easy Java Simulations (EJS). The TwinCAT system is used to close the control loop for the selected plants by means of programmable logic…

This article examines changes in curriculum policy in secondary education in England. It is concerned with recent curriculum policy and reform, and the proliferation of non-government actors in curriculum policy creation. It examines the emergence of a loose alliance of third sector organisations and their involvement in a series of alternative…

More and more educational institutions are using educational technologies and online learning materials to help students achieve satisfactory learning effects. However, not all teachers are able to prepare and design digital learning materials for students. This research attempted to empirically demonstrate the effects of applying open educational…

This study was based on the current growing trend of implementing e-learning in high schools. Most endeavors have been inefficient, rendering an objective of determining the initial steps that could be taken to improve these efforts by assessing a student population's computer skill levels and performances in an IT course. Demographic factors were…

This paper discusses a current project to develop open educational resources (OER) for legislative counsel in countries of the Commonwealth of Nations. The project is the latest step in a 20-year old distance education program for those professionals. The paper explores best practices for investment in freely available OER for use by professionals…

Education is widely seen as an important means of addressing both national and international problems, such as political or religious extremism, poverty, and hunger. However, if developing countries are to become societies that can compete properly with Western industrialized countries, not only is a fundamental shift in thinking with regard to…

Scholars are increasingly being asked to share teaching materials, publish in open access journals, network in social media, and reuse open educational resources (OER). The theoretical benefits of Open Educational Practices (OEP) have become understood in the academic community but thus far, the use of OER has not been rapidly adopted. We aim to…