The AgShare Phase I Program, conducted at Makerere University, Kampala, Uganda, was formed to create open education resources for teaching and community development through action research. The study was conducted by an interdisciplinary team of investigators from fields of veterinary medicine and agri-business. Two master of science students…

The Internet is creating exciting opportunities for universities and their stakeholders. Universities are experimenting with different modes of education. E-learning is one such mode, where students can learn from any place at any time, as long as they have an Internet connection. A course management system (CMS) facilitates e-learning, making it…

Every year, thousands of history teachers nationwide stand before their students describing the evils of using an open source encyclopedia for research projects. The teachers warn of lower grades and a general unfulfilled life for any student who uses Wikipedia in a research bibliography. Yet those same students who listen to the fiery words and…

Purpose: This paper aims to report on an externally-funded project and forms part of its dissemination. Design/methodology/approach: The objectives are achieved through a theoretical framing of the project and an alignment of these with the contexts for the project--namely the Professional Standards Framework of the HEA, its use in postgraduate…

The increasing online access to courses, programs, and information has shifted the control and responsibility of learning process from instructors to learners. Learners' perceptions of and attitudes toward e-learning constitute a critical factor to the success of such system. The purpose of this study is to take TAM (technology acceptance model)…

In order to improve the learning process for students with different pre-knowledge, personal characteristics and preferred learning styles, a certain degree of adaptability must be introduced to online courses. In learning environments that support such kind of functionalities students can explicitly choose different paths through course contents…

At Campus Technology 2010 this past July in Boston, Josh Baron, director of academic technology and e-learning at Marist College (New York) and chair of the Sakai Foundation's board of directors, led a panel discussion on the future of open source and open content in higher education with Brad Felix, chief learning officer of open textbook…

Wikis are open-source sites, meaning that users may add, remove, or edit most content quickly. Because they are a public venue, students became more engaged and invested in what they wrote, wrote more frequently, edited their work more carefully, collaborated, and became accustomed to frequent peer and adult feedback. Writing practice and in-depth…

Teaching writing has always been a controversial issue in the field of Foreign Language Teaching. And while there are a number of approaches and techniques for teaching writing in an English as a Second Language or English as a Foreign Language (SL/EFL) setting, very few comprehensive frameworks exist for an ESL/EFL writing teacher. The present…

There have been numerous calls for research that demonstrates how open education resources (OERs) are actually being used. This case study sought to shed light on the users of a well-visited set of modular music-education materials published at Connexions. Respondents to a voluntary survey included teachers, students, self-directed learners, music…

The paper advocates an approach to learning design that considers it as creating digital artefacts that can be extended, modified and used for different purposes. This is realised through an "act becoming artefact" cycle, where users' actions in the authors' software environment, named Learning Designer, are automatically interpreted on…

Just a few years ago, virtual worlds were credited with the power to transform the universe. Used since the late 1990s in military and medical applications, virtual worlds first gained mainstream media attention when Linden Lab released Second Life in 2003. While other worlds, including open source environments, have launched since then (examples…

The use of learning management systems (LMS) has grown considerably in universities around the world. The University of Minho (UM) has pioneered in this area in Portugal, adopting Blackboard as its official LMS. Moodle is also used in UM in scattered initiatives, allowing for interesting comparisons. Previous studies comparing Blackboard and…

Developing online teaching skills can occur through involvement in learn-by-doing strategies, which incorporates informal, organic or need-driven strategies. Such processes are sometimes labeled as "bottom-up" staff development processes. In other contexts, teaching staff are formally directed to develop online teaching skills through a…

This article addresses the question of understanding more about networked universities by looking at open source software developers working in academic contexts. It sketches their identities and work as an emerging professional community that both relies upon and develops digitally mediated networks and contributes to the progress of academic…