Open Educational Practices (OEP) have played an important role in assisting educational institutions and governments worldwide to meet their current and future educational targets in widening participation, lowering costs, improving the quality of learning and teaching and promoting social inclusion and participatory democracy. There have been…

This paper discusses aspects of adopting, adapting, and building Open Educational Resources (OER) that have the potential to influence student learning but are sometimes overlooked by OER advocates. The author makes recommendations for ensuring that OER initiatives have a positive impact on student learning and argues that librarians can be…

While the mainstream discourse around Open and Distance Learning (ODL) centers on standardization, scalability, efficiency, and cost-effectiveness, I return to a much more contextual and humane understanding of teaching and learning in ODL through feminist pedagogy. I begin my inquiry by discussing women students' experiences through the notion of…

With the increasing development and adoption of Open Educational Resources, many researchers and practitioners are interested in more carefully examining pedagogies connected with their use. This study describes the perceptions of 173 students of implementations of various approaches to open pedagogy by nineteen instructors in post-secondary…

This study examines how 136 language learners interacted with other learners in and out of a Language MOOC on English presentation. It also investigates the learner-reported reasons that encourage them to interact, and that prevent them from interacting with other learners. The results demonstrate that the level of learner-learner interaction was…

Enthusiasts and evangelists of open educational resources (OER) see these resources as a panacea for all of the problems of education. However, despite its promises, their adoption in educational institutions is slow. There are many barriers to the adoption of OER, and many are from within the community of OER advocates. This commentary calls for…

Communication transmits information, ideas and feelings from one person to another. But there are certain barriers which restrict the people's expression. These are social barriers, cultural barriers, temporal barriers, technical barriers, psychological barriers, contextual barriers and collaboration barriers. Therefore, present study was designed…

Massive open online course (MOOC) participants face diverse barriers that prevent them from feeling satisfied with participating in online courses. This study identified those barriers and their predictors. Using pre- and post-questionnaires, MOOC participants reported several characteristics and their barriers to satisfaction during the course.…

This paper demystifies the process of open and distance learning (ODL) policy development in a dual-mode university after existing without one for 50 years. The two-pronged critical questions this paper addresses are: What does it take to successfully develop an ODL policy? And what aspects constitute an ODL policy applicable for a dual-mode…

In the White Paper on Post-School Education and Training of 2013, the South African Department of Higher Education and Training (DHET) encourages the use of digital technology where appropriate to enhance access, improve communication and generally optimise student engagement. As a consequence, higher education and open and distance learning (ODL)…

Inspired by open educational resources, open pedagogy, and open source software, the openness movement in education has different meanings for different people. In this study, we use Twitter data to examine the discourses surrounding openness as well as the people who participate in discourse around openness. By targeting hashtags related to open…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to explore to what extent a flipped classroom pedagogy (FCP) design as a digital pedagogical tool enhances student teachers' learning in economics education at an open distance e-Learning (ODeL) university. Design/methodology/approach: This exploratory study used a quantitative approach and online survey…

Openness in education is an evolving concept which is shaped by the changing needs of societies, cultures, geographies, and economies, thus, it does not have a precise definition. By focusing on four sets of generic keywords -- open education, open learning, open educational resources (OERs), and open educational practices (OEPs) -- this paper…

Open and distance education has been playing an important role in China's development of higher education and lifelong learning. In 2012, the Chinese government approved six large-scale radio and television universities (RTVUs) to become open universities (OUs), including the Open University of China (OUC), Beijing Open University (BJOU), Shanghai…

This report prepared at the request of the Seychelles Ministry of Education presents a new model of schooling in Seychelles and makes a case for strengthening the Seychelles Institute of Distance and Open Learning. The new model proposes to leverage the best features of open schooling, e-learning, hybrid learning, and community tutoring to improve…