Shirley Reushle

Open Learning and Formal Credentialing in Higher Education: Curriculum Models and Institutional Policies.

The discipline of education is a multi-faceted system that must constantly integrate new strategies and procedures to ensure successful learning experiences. Enhancements in education provide learners with greater opportunities for growth and advancement. Open Learning and Formal Credentialing in Higher Education: Curriculum Models and Institutional Policies is an authoritative reference source for the latest scholarly research on learner-focused approaches within adult education environments. Featuring expansive coverage on topics relating to open education, lifelong learning, and formal qualifications, this book is a crucial reference source for researchers, educators, policy makers, and educational administrators interested in the relationship between formal credentials and open education. This book features timely, research-based chapters across a variety of relevant topics including, but not limited to, educational resources, lifelong learning achievements, and the benefits of formal qualifications and licensing.

Work in progress - a novel method of creating an academic content repository

This paper outlines a project aimed at addressing the issue of the scalability of online academic support. This project is being run during the Autumn semester at the University of Southern Queensland (USQ) Toowoomba Australia, in conjunction with the Australian Digital Futures Institute. The study attached to the project will use Design-Based Research to evaluate the effectiveness of a simple, but innovative academic content and metadata creation tool referred to as Academic Assist. Academic Assist has been recently developed at USQ, as a plug-in block for the moodle-based Learning Management System employed at USQ for its several hundred online subjects. The pilot project extends over nine subjects, including three consecutive subjects in computer engineering; and covers faculties of Engineering, Education, Business, Science and Arts. Results of the study including acceptance surveys, expert reviews and usage statistics will be presented at FIE 2009.