Som Naidu

Collaborative Reflective Practice: An Instructional Design Architecture for the Internet

This paper outlines and discusses the instructional design architecture of a graduate study program in Open and Distance Learning that is fully and only accessible via the Internet. The paper also presents the results of an initial evaluation by staff and students of the first offer of the program in 1996. This study program was mounted with funds from the Commonwealth Government (Cathie Committee), a global learning initiative of the American Telegraph and Telecommunications Company (AT&T) and the International Council for Open and Distance Education (ICDE). The program aims to meet the needs of those who are seeking skills in the design and development of open and distance learning systems. The experiences of the first student intake suggest that the program is meeting an identified need very successfully. The program developers describe this program as challenging and clearly trail‐blazing the push for increasing flexible learning opportunities among institutions of higher learning.

Post-questioning, concept mapping and feedback: a distance education field experiment

This study was designed to assess the instructional potential of two learning strategies-post-questioning and concept mapping-in the presence and absence of systematic instructional feedback. It is a first attempt to test combinations of these treatments experimentally in the context of a course in distance education. Five research questions, drawn from the literature of postquestioning, concept mapping and feedback, were formulated to guide the design and analysis. Substantial differences in achievement outcomes were found for four of the five questions. These results are discussed in relation to the existing literature on outcomes of learning strategies and their implication for practice in distance education. This study concerns two prime elements found in most instructional models: learning strategies (or instructional strategies) that engage and direct students in the activity of learning, and instructional feedback that provides correction to and reinforcement of the students initial attempts at achieving learning objectives. Our purpose was to assess experimentally the relative merits of two learning strategies-administered with and without the addition of explicit instructional feedback-on cognitive achievement in the natural context of an ongoing distance education course. Learning strategies In an important paper on learning strategies, Rigney (1978) outlined a construct that has received wide acceptance. Strategies may be assigned by the instructional system or activated by the learner, and they may be classified as embedded strategies or detached strategies. Embedded strategies are specific to the content of instruction (eg postquestions, advance organisers) and cannot readily be generalised to other content. Detached strategies (eg cognitive mapping, note-taking) are not specific to particular content and therefore may be applied to a variety of material. The learning strategies which we investigated were system assigned, but they differed as to their relationship to

Applying learning and instructional strategies in open and distance learning

This paper is about the application of learning and instructional strategies in open and distance learning settings. First, a brief comment is made on the nature of open and distance learning and also teaching and learning in such settings. This is followed by a brief discussion of the impacts of particular types of learning and instructional strategics on learning. A framework is presented for applying learning and instructional strategies in open and distance learning contexts, and the translation of this framework into an instructional transaction that offers a generic plan for developing instruction. This is, therefore, a conceptual paper. It discusses a theoretical framework for applying learning and instructional strategies that is currently being implemented in the design and development of instruction for an on‐line (electronic) teaching‐learning environment. The results of that implementation will be reported at a later date.

MOOCs: emerging research

Few phenomena in recent memory have rocked the boat of higher education generally, and the field of distance education in particular, more than the advent of massive open online courses (MOOCs). Supporters of these online courses, which are aimed at unlimited participation and open access via the Web, hail it as a true, disruptive innovation (Christensen, 2013), as well as a means of democratizing access to education and as promising new insights on teaching and learning from analytics on tens of thousands to millions of students (e.g. Picciano, 2012; Siemens & Long, 2011). Critics of MOOCs cite concerns about homogenization and depersonalization of education, about corporate influences on the academy, and about the lack of attention to the findings from decades of research on distance education and online learning. Some MOOCs are designed to enable anyone anywhere to study free university courses or pursue their interests by taking taster courses. Some are intended primarily as “digital storefronts,” designed to market institutional brands globally. Some are aimed at openness and access; others at economizing or profiteering. Some providers are elite institutions, while others are for-profit start-ups. The so-called cMOOCs use constructivist principles, but the majority, referred to as xMOOCs, employ a knowledge transmission model using video recordings of classroom lectures or custom-produced mini-lectures. Regardless of type, Bates (2012) sees MOOCs as a retrograde step, observing that it is as if distance learning had just been invented and nothing was known about the need for quality in instructional design and learner support. With high non-completion rates also being reported, Yuan and Powell (2013) suggest that the issues of quality, sustainability, pedagogy, completion rates, and awarding of credit in MOOCs are of major concern for higher education, and that if their use is to take hold, some form(s) of quality assurance will be needed to ensure that they conform to best practice. Regardless of our views on MOOCs, it is clear that we find ourselves in a place where practice is leading theory (or at least the application of theory), and meaningful research findings are sparse. Moreover, as the articles in this special themed issue make abundantly clear, we are also seeing MOOCs being adapted in a diversity of ways. Firmin et al. (2014) describe MOOCs that are not massive and are targeting on-campus students. Li et al. (2014) describe co-located viewing of MOOC videos that is squarely an in-person rather than an online learning experience. Clearly, treating MOOCs as a monolithic, homogenous practice is unhelpful in advancing our understanding or in even agreeing on a shared vocabulary with which to discuss and debate. Our goal in compiling this special issue of the journal has been to provide a forum to help close the gaps between theory, research, and practice on this topic. The response by the research community to the call for papers for this issue of the journal was overwhelmingly strong, and it is likely that a growing number of

Mapping research trends from 35 years of publications in Distance Education

Abstract This article maps out trends in distance education research and scholarship from 35 years of publications in the Distance Education journal. Titles and abstracts of 515 full papers were analyzed using the text-mining tool LeximancerTM to identify and describe themes in distance education research covered by these publications in the journal over the period 1980–2014. Analysis of titles and abstracts over 5-year periods reveals the following broad emerging themes over the seven time periods: professionalization and institutional consolidation (1980–1984), instructional design and educational technology (1985–1989), quality assurance in distance education (1990–1994), student support and early stages of online learning (1995–1999), the emergence of the virtual university (2000–2004), collaborative learning and online interaction patterns (2005–2009), and interactive learning, MOOCs and OERs (2010–2014). The place of these themes within waves of alternating institutional and individual research is discussed.

On-line professional staff development: an evaluation study

This paper reports the design, implementation, and evaluation of a teleseminar on instructional design (ID) and computer-mediated communication (CMC) for the purposes of staff development at The University of Southern Queensland, Toowoomba, Australia. Participation was open to any staff with an involvement or interest in distance education. This study was motivated by the following research questions: Is CMC a viable medium for the professional development of staff in distance education? Does the nature of moderation of CMC-based discussions influence the nature of contributions from subscribers? Do participants use different strategies (interactive, cognitive, and metacognitive) in CMC-based discussions? To address these questions a teleseminar was instituted with a focus on the issues of ID and CMC. CMC-based moderation techniques were used to manage the discussion. Both qualitative and quantitative evaluation tools were used to measure the outcomes of the teleseminar. Results of these evaluation data show that CMC proved to be a viable medium for the professional development of staff, that the moderation strategies influenced the nature of contributions from the subscribers, and that participants used a range of strategies to manage the discussion and their participation in it.

Enhancing academic performance in distance education with concept mapping and inserted questions

This research was designed to investigate the relative strength of two instructional strategies — inserted questions and concept mapping — for enhancing the academic performance of distance learners. The sample for this field experiment comprised one hundred and forty‐one nursing students enrolled in a 20‐week distance education course. A significant difference was found in favour of subjects who completed at least 11 of 12 concept mapping exercises. These subjects also indicated a preference for visual and graphic learning techniques. Inserted questions with explicit corrective feedback outperformed questions without such feedback.

Looking back, looking forward: the invention and reinvention of distance education

At its 2014 convocation ceremony, the Open University of Sri Lanka (OUSL) conferred upon me an honorary degree of Doctor of Letters for my “contribution to the field of distance education regionall...

In search of “what works” in online and distance education

A recent memo by the United States Presidents’ Council of Advisors on Science and Technology to the President of the United States addresses the specific case of massive open online courses (MOOCs), and especially their potential for addressing the challenges that face higher education in the United States (US). In this memo, written in December 2013, the Council recognizes, and rightly so, that “neither the massive, nor the open, nor the online nature of MOOCs is really new” (see http:// 1.usa.gov/IVkaa6, p. 2). It notes that MOOCs are a form of online distance education, which has a long and robust pedigree both in the US and elsewhere (see also Romiszowski, 2013). The Council suggests that, along with their ability to reach massive numbers of students and address many of the challenges facing higher education worldwide, MOOCs have the potential to offer a lot more than conventional distance education technologies such as print, radio, video, television, and even the Internet. But it cautions that these are very early days yet in the life of MOOCs, and that there are likely to be many more failed initiatives than successful ones. It recommends that the Federal Government help by supporting research and the sharing of results on effective teaching and learning online, in the belief that such research would facilitate understanding of what is working well, as well as bring into the public domain proprietary information and data for the benefit of others (http://1.usa.gov/IVkaa6, p. 6). A good suggestion no doubt, this will add to the work that is already under way along these lines. This journal, for instance, is publishing a special themed issue on MOOCs in August 2014 (volume 35.2). We believe this is a first such initiative to capture the early rounds of research culled from a general call for papers on the topic in a peer-reviewed outlet such as this (see http://bit.ly/1fS10uQ/). Another substantial research effort into MOOCs is currently under way with the support of Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Preliminary findings from this effort, which is being administered by Athabasca University in Canada, were presented recently at a conference at the University of Texas at Arlington, in the US (see http://www.moocresearch.com/). Early rounds of data show that MOOCs have relatively few active users, that user engagement falls off dramatically after the first few weeks, and that few users persist to the end of the course (see http://bit.ly/ 1hddlhe/). Findings such as these will not surprise anyone at all familiar with online distance education, because these patterns of learning behavior in distance education more generally have been widely reported in the literature (see Bernard et al., 2009; Bernard, Borokhovski, Schmid, Tamim, & Abrami, 2014; Tamim, Bernard, Borokhovski, Abrami, & Schmid, 2011). While more research is always welcome, the fact of the matter is that we already know a great deal about what works in online distance learning. See also in this issue of the journal two very insightful

Transforming MOOCs and MOORFAPs into MOOLOs

At the launch of edX (see https://www.edx.org/), its president Anant Agarwal, announced that a “revolution is taking place in Boston and beyond, and that it is neither about tea nor the Boston Harbor—instead, it is about online education,” a revolution which he proclaimed was “going to change the face of education in the world” (Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2012). Agarwal is right: online education is growing rapidly, and challenging conventional educational practices through developments such as massive open online courses (MOOCs) (see Edutechnica, 2012) and the flipped classroom (see Gallagher & Garrett, 2013). See also, in this issue of the journal, Jon Baggaley’s reflections and prophetic insights on the development of MOOCs—“MOOC Rampant”) and Bobbie Seyedmonir’s review of Salman Khan’s book The One World School House: Education Reimagined, and her incisive and critical commentary on Khan’s visions of the flipped classroom in it. These revolutionary developments in online education are largely the consequence of the affordances of the Internet and the Web. However, while purporting to leverage off the power of these technologies, and improving educational practices, a common concern about these developments is that they are actually failing to make the most of the opportunities afforded by the Internet and the Web (see Milheim, 2013; Saba, 2013). The cause of this failing seems to be the inability of many of these purported revolutionary developments to learn from our past. Online education is not that much of a new development. Its origins can be traced back more than a couple of decades, and its fundamental principles many more decades through the broader practices of distance education and flexible learning (see Romiszowski, 2013). However, early iterations of online education (especially xMOOCs) set about to replicate conventional campus-based learning and teaching activities, namely places for educators to give lectures, and for students to listen to these lectures, and take quizzes and tests online (see Morrison, 2013). They failed to take advantage of the obvious affordances of the Internet and the Web such as network connectivity, and the opportunity for synchronous as well as asynchronous communication—quickly earning them the label MOORFAPs—massive open online repetitions of failed pedagogy (see also Prensky, 2013). But just as readers of this journal will be aware how early iterations of printbased correspondence education quickly morphed into much better resource-based distance education with which we are familiar today, I am confident, along with many others, that developments in online education will mature and improve with practice and experience (see also Cooper, 2013; Gallagher & Garrett, 2013). Furthermore, I believe there is every chance that proponents of MOOCs and the flipped classroom, in efforts to improve their practice, will quickly discover that