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Online Learning News and Research
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Saturday, January 24, 2004
Preparing for Distance Learning: Designing An Online Student Orientation Course - Jane Bozarth, Diane D. Chapman, Laura LaMonica; Ed Tech & Society
Abstract: This paper describes the analysis undertaken to design a 1-credit-hour online orientation course for students new to online learning. An instructional design team, as a part of an advanced instructional design course, worked with a university-based client. The client identified specific problem areas encountered by novice students of online courses and the team designed a comprehensive program to meet those needs. Analysis of the data revealed surprising differences in expectations between instructors of online courses and their students of what an orientation to online learning should include. The team also conducted a task analysis to aid in further identifying the skills, knowledge and attitudes required by students for success in online courses. Findings indicated that there is a need for online learners to understand the time commitment required of an online course and possess or develop strong time management skills. Because of small sample size, results cannot be generalized beyond the respondents. The authors found a mismatch in the perception of instructor technical skills versus student technical skill. Based on their findings, the paper provides recommendations on the appropriate design, development and implementation of an orientation to online learning. (0) comments
PBS, area college offer online degree - Pamela Batzel, Philly Daily Local
A community college with campuses in Chester County will offer an entire degree online as part of a collaborative project with PBS and other Philadelphia-area community colleges. Delaware County Community College, which has campuses in Exton and Downingtown, will offer an associate’s degree in general studies through the Public Broadcasting System’s Web site and video-streaming technology. The initiative, announced from the WHYY headquarters in Philadelphia Tuesday, will marry the traditional, largely text-based online courses with television-based courses produced by PBS. (0) comments
Online Classes Logging More Hits - JULIET GREER, Tampa Tribune
For at least the next five years, Dorsey Sawicki's dining area will look more like a cluttered dorm room, with DVDs, computers, textbooks and papers replacing china and silverware. After finishing high school in 1980, Sawicki twice attempted community college. He quickly dropped out each time. But he's trying again, this time with a keyboard and his work supervisors behind him, and his wife, Sandy, agreeing to the dining room's conversion.... Enter online learning, and Sawicki's dream of a bachelor's degree in business management no longer seems out of reach. That's the case for thousands of students at Tampa Bay area colleges and universities, part of a global trend toward online learning. (0) comments Friday, January 23, 2004
What are the conditions for and characteristics of effective online learning communities? - Australian National Training Authority
This guide is premised on the notion that ‘online communities’ are an increasingly important part of the way we will operate, as teachers, learners, and citizens of a networked world, and, the benefits we accept from these new ways of working. This guide explores definitions and characteristics of online communities synthesised from the literature, summarises key success factors, and provides references to additional material for those who want to know more. It focuses in particular on online communities as part of teaching and learning, and on ‘communities of practice’ in vocational education and training (VET). This guide does not extend to the important legal and regulatory issues which need to be addressed as part of setting up and managing online communities such as privacy, confidentiality, copyright, discrimination, defamation and harassment. (0) comments
Scholars and scoundrels: Distance learning schools are as popular as ever. But who decides which are legit? - Larry Wills, Las Vegas Mercury
The explosion in the distance learning industry has created near chaos in how to tell good schools from the bad. Students are stuck with diplomas that no traditional institution will recognize, even though many distance learning schools qualify for student loans. While some schools are shams, others exceed the standards of many campus-based schools. Blame it on a lack of uniform standards and a clubbiness among old-line faculties. "It's getting to be very vicious competition," says Mike Lambert, head of the Distance Education and Training Council. The Washington, D.C., group has been operating for more than 40 years and is recognized by the U.S. Department of Education. It conducts an onerous 18-month process to accredit distance learning schools. But Lambert concedes that even when a school qualifies for accreditation, it can be stonewalled for regional recognition by commissions dominated by traditional universities. (0) comments
eValuating eCornell - BRIAN KAVIAR, Cornell Daily Sun
For some universities, online learning has proven to be a shaky business venture. Columbia University's for-profit program, Fathom, was the industry's largest until its demise in March 2003 after it failed to turn a profit. Cornell's program, eCornell, has proven itself separate from the pack in its ability to remain successful despite the volatility of online businesses. In a November release, eCornell said its finances are holding strong -- $2.87 million in revenue with $1.73 million in royalties and course payments to Cornell and faculty as well as $1.2 million in the original startup payments to Cornell. (0) comments Thursday, January 22, 2004
PBS Joins With Five Higher Education Institutions to Offer "PBS Campus"
PBS joined five of the nation's leading institutions of higher education to announce that, for the first time, every course available in the wide ranging "PBS Campus" service (www.pbs.org/campus) will be available for any student to take for college credit, no matter where they live.... Because each of the five institutions is a proven leader at providing distance education, students will be able to complete the PBS courses, or entire college degree programs, at their own convenience, without ever having to physically set foot on campus. (0) comments
Cuyahoga Community College Offering Free Online General Education Development (GED) Program
Cuyahoga Community College is offering a General Education Development (GED) program designed to assist independent learners prepare for their high school equivalency diploma online for free. The program, called GED Connection, is designed to allow students to study at home and set their own pace and learning goals, creating an individualized schedule that takes into account their work and family schedules. (0) comments
Navy College DLP - the Dolphin
The Navy College Program Distance Learning Partnership (NCPDLP) is a Navy partnership with colleges and universities across the U.S. The partnership schools offer rating-related degrees via distance learning to Sailors everywhere. The partnership colleges provide rating related associates and bachelors degrees while making maximum use of SMART credit. The program allows students to complete course requirements through Distance Learning so that Sailors can earn degrees anywhere in the world. Courses are offered in a variety of formats including CD-ROM, videotape, paper, or over the Internet. Contact NCO or check out the web site at https://www.navycollege.navy.mil. (0) comments Wednesday, January 21, 2004
Editorial: Does “lean thinking” relate to network-based distance education? - Peter S. Cookson, IRODL
....Over the past decade or so, there has been a major worldwide expansion of distance education systems, particularly online, Web-based systems. Unlike prior distance education systems, however, network-based distance education models do not so readily accommodate industrialized forms of education. Indeed, the interaction that network-based models enable between students and course content, teachers and peers, sets practical and attenuates the extent to which such teaching-learning transactions may be regarded a form of industrialization. (0) comments
Fakes slip through the net, so take a degree of care - Jennifer Sharples, the Telegraph
Although the internet has opened up unparalleled opportunities for learning by distance, it has also created a multi-million dollar fraud industry, with hundreds of fake "universities" springing up selling instant degrees that are not worth the paper they are printed on. Many of these institutions run glossy adverts in upmarket business magazines offering unaccredited degrees that have not been earned. It is a case of buyer beware. Dr John Bear, an internationally acclaimed distance learning expert, is the co-author of "Bears' Guide to Earning Degrees by Distance Learning". In the latest edition, he lists hundreds of colleges and universities that he calls "degree mills", which exist only to sell degrees that have not been accredited or earned. (0) comments
Online games to generate real and academic riches - Will Knight, NewScientist.com
Multiplayer online computer games are expected to generate more than $1 billion in revenue for the first time in 2004, according to a new prediction. But as well as providing financial riches, some researchers believe the virtual communities built within these complex artificial worlds may also provide academic riches by providing a unique new way to study social, economic and legal phenomena. "What is unique is the ability of an outside observer to see, so clearly, how communities act," says Edward Castronova, an economist at California State University at Fullerton who has studied the economies built up in such games. (0) comments Tuesday, January 20, 2004
Teaching Composition Online: No Longer the Second Best Choice - Leslie Blair, Kairos
Overview: Having taught freshmen composition both in the classroom and online, I have noticed a unique learning advantage for students who participate online. Students who take an online composition course learn to communicate through writing because it is their only medium for communication. The practice they receive through writing to communicate with their instructor and peers can be as influential to their writing skills as major essay assignments. Using current online technologies in conjunction with research in distance education has given me a new direction for not only my online courses, but my face-to-face composition classes as well. (0) comments
Interactive University Extends Global Reach to Africa
Interactive University (IU), Scotland's global education distributor, has announced its entry into the African market and the signing of its first local marketing partner, ZICAB (Zambian Institute for Capacity Building), a training, education and development agency.... Interactive University has already signed over 20 students in Africa and an estimated 250 are expected to sign up to the Heriot-Watt Management Programme alone over the next three years. The Management Programme, which is supported by ZICAB through web supported learning, is the first of its kind to be offered in the country. (0) comments
BBC Worldwide launches BBC Learning in India
BBC Worldwide, the commercial consumer arm of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), is set to launch BBC Learning in India. As part of the launch, BBC Worldwide will be offering two online MBA scholarships from a renowned business school in London. Scholarship students will begin their study in late 2004 through UK eUniversities Worldwide, which is backed by the government of UK to provide online degrees from universities in the country. (0) comments Monday, January 19, 2004
Virtual Education, Real Educators: Issues in Online Learning - Review by Virginia Kuhn, Kairos
Cynthia Selfe's memorable keynote, later made into an influential book, delivered at the 1998 Conference on College Composition and Communication challenged educators to become actively involved in shaping the pedagogical applications of emergent technologies. According to Selfe, since technology and literacy "have become linked in ways that exacerbate current educational and social inequities in the United States" (Selfe), teachers, however reluctant or ill prepared, are obliged to investigate, evaluate, and critique educational hardware and software in an attempt to ensure their pedagogical soundness. Failure to do so, Selfe argues, only perpetuates existing modes of structural oppression. If teachers wish to avoid complicity, therefore, they must produce scholarship that critically engages technological issues. Virtual Education, Real Educators: Issues in Online Learning, a text published by the Canadian Teachers’ Federation and written by members of its board, just may represent the quintessential effort that Selfe envisioned. (0) comments
Archiving Electronic Journals: Research Funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation - Digital Library Federation
Introduction by Linda Cantara: Scholarly research and communication depends upon perpetual access to the published scholarship of the past. Before the advent of electronic journals, research libraries subscribed to printed journals, provided access to, and preserved these bibliographic resources in continual support of the research, teaching, and learning needs of their constituent communities. The introduction of electronic journals has transformed scholarly communication in extraordinary ways — making it possible to disseminate research results more quickly, to provide hyperlinked access to cited publications, and to amplify text with images, audio and video files, datasets and software — but it has also created a dilemma for libraries which now license access to rather than own the journals to which they subscribe. Clearly, a model of collaboration involving scholars, publishers, and librarians is required to ensure that the e-scholarship of today will be accessible to researchers of the future. (0) comments
McGill student wins fight over anti-cheating website - CBC
A student at McGill University has won the right to have his assignments marked without first submitting them to an American, anti-plagiarism website. Jesse Rosenfeld refused to submit three assignments for his second-year economics class to Turnitin.com, a website that compares submitted works to other student essays in its database, as well as to documents on the web and published research papers. (0) comments Sunday, January 18, 2004
Some Notes on Simulacra Machines, Flash in First-Year Composition, and Tactics in Spaces of Interruption - Anthony Ellertson, Kairos
Abstract: This article is an examination of the discourse surrounding a new media tool, Macromedia's Flash, and a discussion of a qualitative study of Flash's use by students as part of an electronic portfolio assignment in a first-year composition course. My article explores how the software industry constructs Flash as a discursive object for the regulation of information flow, while also examining how the present generation of students interacts with these new media environments, making meaning within them through the use of simulacra tools. (0) comments
Online Interactive Text on Consumer Behavior - Western Michigan University
A Western Michigan University professor has published what is believed to be the first online, truly interactive consumer behavior text. Dr. Jay D. Lindquist, professor of marketing, and Dr. M. Joseph Sirgy of Virginia Tech, co-wrote "Shopper, Buyer and Consumer Behavior: Theory, Marketing Applications and Public Policy Implications." The book, available in both paperback and online form, was published late last year by Atomic Dog Publishing. Students using the text and online learning tools need little or no training and no special hardware or software. They also do not need high-speed Internet access, making it easy for students around the world to access the text using a password from any wireless or wired location any day or time. (0) comments
The Sloan Consortium
Distance education (sometimes referred to as correspondence learning) has been around for over a century in the United States, but recent developments in the nature of online learning over the internet have increased exponentially. While only a few institutions (such as the University of Phoenix) conduct all of their educational programs over the internet, more and more mainstream institutions have integrated these educational approaches into their curriculums over the past few years. As part of its core mission, the Sloan Consortium is designed "to help learning organizations continually improve quality, scale, and breadth according to their own distinctive missions." The activities of the Consortium are quite broad, and include publishing the Journal of Asynchronous Learning Networks (JALN), conducting surveys and leading forums on online education, and hosting conferences and workshops. The site contains a great deal of this type of material on its site, including the full-text of the JALN, and a rather compelling survey titled "The Quality and Extent of Online Education in the United States, 2002 and 2003." From The Scout Report, Copyright Internet Scout Project 1994-2003. http://scout.wisc.edu/ (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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