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Online Learning News and Research
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Saturday, April 20, 2002
http://www.ipfw.edu/as/tohe/2001/Papers/meyer.htm Where'd They Go? Retention Issues and Ideas for Online Courses Joyce D. Meyer, M.S.W., L.C.S.W., Parkland College Abstract: As we seek to utilize online instruction in ever more productive ways, we must continue to be mindful of student retention, the lack of which can plague online classes in particular. Instruction over the Internet is maturing, and its quality will increasingly be scrutinized. Online student completion rates should be -- and can be -- improved. What course components and practices tend to be associated with high rates of student completion? Conversely, are there certain components that seem to drive students away? These elements are examined in light of the special characteristics of online courses; relevant methods that enhance retention are featured.... (0) comments Friday, April 19, 2002
http://www.westga.edu/%7Edistance/ojdla/spring51/heberling51.html Maintaining Academic Integrity in Online Education Michael Heberling, Ph.D., President,Baker College Center for Graduate Studies, Abstract Online education has come under a great deal of scrutiny over the issue of academic integrity. It is assumed that cheating and plagiarism are a greater problem online than in a traditional class. In reality, maintaining academic integrity is equally a challenge in both delivery modes. However, by the very nature of online education, a case can be made that it is more conducive to both detecting and combating plagiarism than is a traditional class.... (0) comments http://www.usdla.org/html/journal/MAR02_Issue/papers.html USDLA Journal CALL FOR PAPERS The USDLA Journal is a refereed publication of the United States Distance Learning Association. It focuses on distance and open learning and their integration into education and training worldwide. Specific topics include: research, innovations in teaching and learning theory and practice, curriculum design, technology, learning from television, online learning, interactivity, peer learning, learning objects, administration and evaluation of distance education programs, legislation, policy frameworks and analyses, institutional change, education-industry partnerships, and other topics related to learning at a distance.... (0) comments http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/living/3021016.htm President's brother travels world promoting online education venture WASHINGTON (AP) - A decade after his ties to a failed savings and loan brought his family unwanted attention, Neil Bush is crisscrossing the globe promoting a company with a mission to transform the way children are taught. The president's brother has raised at least $18 million in capital for his Ignite startup from investors from as far away as Egypt and Japan.... (0) comments http://www.distance-educator.com/dn/dnews.php?action=detail&id=6651 America Online And Fathom Announce New Alliance To Expand AOL's "Online Campus" Learning Center Source: Fathom America Online Inc. and Fathom announced an alliance to make Fathom's wide-ranging educational content and courses available through AOL's Online Campus. AOL launched the Online Campus last December in response to growing demand for e-learning opportunities. In an AOL member survey, 63% said they had a high interest in taking a course online and nearly all were interested in using AOL. Accessible through AOL's Research & Learn Channel and AOL KW: Online Campus, the Online Campus enables members to research and register for online and offline courses, access career advancement resources, explore an interest or hobby, and even complete undergraduate and graduate degrees online.... (0) comments Thursday, April 18, 2002
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2002/04/14/1018333438402.html Suddenly, e-learning is mainstream Eric Wilson E-learning has often been justified as a way of cutting training travel costs and downtime, by bringing education to every desktop computer. However universities, schools and corporations are finding the new medium also brings with it a whole set of new organisational cultures and attitudes. Andrew Fluck, an IT lecturer based at the University of Tasmania's faculty of education in Launceston, has been experimenting with e-learning for the past five years. As the technology has come to maturity within his institution, Fluck has noticed its impact on how people view themselves and their relationships.... (0) comments http://chronicle.com/free/2002/04/2002041801u.htm Ford and General Motors Establish Distance-Education Programs for Employees MICHAEL ARNONE Eager to offer more-competitive benefits, Ford Motor Company and General Motors are sponsoring programs that will let employees earn degrees through distance education. Starting this September, Northwood University expects to offer employees at Ford and Lincoln Mercury dealerships nationwide the chance to earn a mostly online bachelor's degree of business administration in automotive marketing and management. Cardean University will offer its all-online master's-degree program in business administration to employees of General Motors beginning in May. Cardean is a division of UNext, a major provider of online management education.... (0) comments Wednesday, April 17, 2002
http://www.distance-educator.com/dn/dnews.php?action=detail&id=6638 Blackboard Inc. Receives Prestigious 2002 Codie Award Source: Blackboard.com April 16, 2002, Washington, D.C. - Blackboard Inc., the leading software infrastructure company for e-Education, has been awarded the Software & Information Industry Association's (SIIA) 2002 Best Postsecondary Educational Solution Codie Award. The SIIA 2002 Codie Awards showcase the software and information industry's finest products and services. The award for Best Postsecondary Educational Solution recognizes the best platform solution for the delivery of e-Education to the higher education market.... (0) comments http://www.distance-educator.com/dn/dnews.php?action=detail&id=6634 Connecticut State University System Revamps Digital Campus Source: Connecticut State University System Hartford, Conn., April 16, 2002 - The Connecticut State University System announced today that it has signed a contract with Campus Pipeline, CollegisEduprise, SCT and WebCT to extend its distance learning arm, OnlineCSU, and enhance its online services. The CSU System includes Central Connecticut State University, Eastern Connecticut State University, Southern Connecticut State University, and Western Connecticut State University.... (0) comments http://www.uwiretoday.com/computing041602005.html Kansas State U. faculty use software to help detect Internet plagiarism in students' work Edie Hall, Kansas State Collegian (Kansas State U.) (U-WIRE) MANHATTAN, Kan. -- The Honor Pledge of Kansas State University is implied in every class, regardless if it is specifically stated: "On my honor, as a student, I have neither given nor received unauthorized aid on this academic work." K-State faculty are taking additional action beyond the pledge to keep students from cheating. With the Internet at students' fingers, plagiarism of online material is a concern of professors across the country. At K-State professors say cheating is a problem, and they are doing things to control it.... (0) comments http://www.uwiretoday.com/computing041602002.html Indiana U. digital library brings collections, archives online Tania Payne, Indiana Daily Student (Indiana U.) (U-WIRE) BLOOMINGTON, Ind. -- The Indiana University Digital Library Program (DLP) is a collaborative effort by all IU campuses to create digital content that can be made available to everyone from the Web. The digital library encompasses all information collected from the different IU campus' libraries, museums and archives. According to its Web site, the digital library focuses on a limited number of high-priority program areas that include already successful digital library initiatives, development of new digital library services, research and development into digital library technologies and various collaborations and partnerships.... (0) comments http://ts.mivu.org/default.asp?show=article&id=982 Drafting a Faculty Copyright Ownership Policy Laura N. Gasaway Many colleges and universities are either considering ways to revise their existing copyright policies or drafting new policies. A copyright policy encompasses both the use of copyrighted works owned by third parties and the ownership of works generated by faculty, staff and students within an institution. The purpose of an ownership policy should be to encourage research, scholarship and the dissemination of knowledge; thus, the ownership model the school adopts should further this purpose.... (0) comments Tuesday, April 16, 2002
http://www.online-learning.com/papers/articlementored.html What exactly is 'mentored-learning' anyway? There are many different types of online education courses. They range from downloadable self-paced courses to real-time, instructor-led courses. And while most people can understand each end of this spectrum, it is in the middle ground where most of the confusion lies. The middle ground is loosely called 'mentored-learning'. Today, over 66% of online educational institutions offer some form of mentored-learning. Unfortunately, nobody knows what it means. 'Mentored-learning' can mean anything from sending a student a couple of emails to diligently monitoring a student's progress twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. For the prospective student, trying to understand what you're getting is a formidable task. The rest of this article describes what we mean by mentored-learning.... (0) comments http://www.fcw.com/fcw/articles/2002/0415/mgt-dod-04-15-02.asp DOD sets e-learning course Dan Caterinicchia An agreement signed by the National Guard Bureau and the Defense Department's Advanced Distributed Learning (ADL) initiative may someday extend e-learning all the way to the foxhole. The groups have agreed to establish the first-ever e-learning partnership laboratory with an international partner. The co-laboratory will focus on advancing global e-learning standards so that international groups will be able to share content, courseware modules and lessons learned. A working agreement has been reached between the United States and the United Kingdom to establish a co-laboratory at the University of Wolverhampton in England, said Maureen Lischke, the Guard's chief information officer and program executive officer for information systems.... (0) comments http://www.distance-educator.com/dn/dnews.php?action=detail&id=6625 New England College Of Finance Offers Online Degree Program To The Financial Services Industry Source: eCollege Boston and Denver - April 15, 2002 - New England College of Finance (NECF), a not-for-profit educational organization serving all segments of the financial services industry, today announced it is offering a first-of-its-kind online accredited degree program for employees of its Member and Partner companies. These include some of the most prominent firms in the industry including Fleet, State Street, Fidelity, and Liberty Mutual.... (0) comments http://www.uwiretoday.com/computing041502005.html Dartmouth 'digital library' to debut in fall By Nathaniel Ward, The Dartmouth (Dartmouth College) (U-WIRE) HANOVER, N.H. -- Dartmouth College students soon will have access to a world of information beyond the dusty stacks of Baker Library, thanks to a "digital library" that will add a variety of digital multimedia and electronic publications to the more than two million printed volumes. According to College Librarian Richard Lucier, the new resource -- set to debut this fall -- will combine scholarly resources with the Internet's ease of use.... (0) comments Monday, April 15, 2002
http://distancelearn.blogspot.com/ How to Set up an Internet Course with Free Tools Anson Chong, Adjunct Lecturer, Hawai’i Community College This paper is designed to show experienced instructors, professors and lecturers how to create and implement on-line courses using free systems and software on the Internet. It is assumed that the reader knows how to handle elementary Windows environments on a PC (personal computer) with a modem (a device that connects the PC to a phone line or cable system). However, the reader does not have to know how to handle HTML code or JAVA script to set up on-line courses as described here. The intent is to show experienced college teachers how to adapt standard syllabi and lesson plans to reliable course-presentation Internet formats. Also discussed is the use of cost-effective CD digital technology to bring outstanding guest lecturers (all Ph.D.s) in sound, color and animation right into the student's home PC's.... (0) comments http://www.usdla.org/html/journal/FEB02_Issue/article01.html How the Web Changes Work, Education, and the Ways People Learn John Seely Brown Editor's Note: The content and technology are continually changing. This article reminds us that learners are also changing. For the past decade, faculty who won awards for teaching expressed concern that they could no longer hold the attention of their students. John Seely Brown, Chief Scientist at Xerox and director of its Palo Alto Research Center, hired 15 year olds to design future work environments and learning environments. He observed that the students did not conform to the traditional image of learners as permissive sponges. It requires us to rethink and redesign education for the Digital Age.... (0) comments http://www.usdla.org/html/journal/FEB02_Issue/article05.html Experiencing the Online Environment Denise L. Land “Let the Knowledge Olympics begin. The torch of e-learning is ablaze" (Bersch, 2001, p. 32). The distance-learning environment taps into the innovation of technology to offer a flexible and engaging adult learning opportunity. Students engaged in distance learning are able to learn anytime, anywhere, in a collaborative learning community. Online learning promotes the globalization of adult learning by opening the boundaries of learning (Neo & Eng, 2001). Traditional institutions of higher education are met with the triple challenge of keeping education activities moving forward, supplementing research opportunities or expanding customary classroom offerings with e-learning opportunities and, of course, keeping an eye on their profit margins. Competition from accredited online universities leaves traditional institutions scrambling for innovative avenues that will salvage long-existing traditions of academia.... (0) comments Sunday, April 14, 2002
http://www.westga.edu/%7Edistance/ojdla/spring51/halsne51.html Online Versus Traditionally-delivered Instruction: A Descriptive Study of Learner Characteristics in a Community College Setting (College of Lake County) Alana M. Halsne,Doctoral Candidate, Loyola University of Chicago Louis A. Gatta, Ph.D., Assistant Professor,Loyola University of Chicago ...The purpose of this study was to compare the learning styles of community college students who enrolled in an off campus online course (via the Internet) and those who were taking the same course on-campus.... The online learners were predominately visual learners and spent, on the average, an hour more per week on classwork than did their traditional student counterparts. There also more women than there are men taking online classes. The online learners at this community college were primarily married or divorced and had children living at home.... (ed. note: Fascinating reading! The demographics are most interesting. -Ray) (0) comments http://www.usdla.org/html/journal/FEB02_Issue/article03.html Making Teachers Feel Contented with Online Courses Lev Abramov, Natalie Martkovich, LA e-Learning Center Our aim was to examine levels of satisfaction of English teachers (currently taking online courses or having taken such courses in the past), and determine the factors influencing them. Very often, online course designers do not get sufficient feedback on levels of satisfaction of their courses’ participants – feedback that might otherwise bring forth some improvement in the course design and delivery approaches, as well as in proper placement testing procedures. We were especially interested in observing some connection between confidence levels of participants (i.e., to what extent they felt computer-fluent) and their satisfaction levels, in order to find out whether this connection indeed exists, and if so, what sort of relation it is – positive or negative.... (0) comments http://www.usdla.org/html/journal/FEB02_Issue/article04.html Relevant Assessment Strategies for Online Colleges & Universities Brent Muirhead D.Min., Ph.D. It is important for teachers to have a clear vision of their roles and responsibilities to provide the best teaching strategies for their students. The instructor’s role is a dynamic one that requires having individuals who are able to create a virtual climate that encourages meaningful individual and collaborative learning. Assessment is an important element in the teaching and learning process that challenges instructors to consider evaluation techniques that meet the learning needs of today’s adult learners. The teacher’s assessment strategies are significant because they provide a relational prompt for students and insights into the educational process. Evaluating the teaching and learning process involves a host of activities such as creating course objectives, gathering data from a variety of sources and often assigning grades for student work. Hopefully, relevant assessment methodology should accurately inform both the teacher and student about the quality of the learning experiences.... (0) comments Online Learning News Blog Archives OTEL - Ray's Home Page - Notebook - UIS Online - U of I Online - UIS Home Fair Use |
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