Web3D presents many opportunities for learners in a virtual world or virtual environment over the web. This is a great opportunity for open-distance education institutions to benefit from web3d technologies to create courses with interactive 3d materials. There are many open source and commercial products offering 3d technologies over the web…

This paper identifies a set of universal instructional design (UID) principles appropriate to distance education (DE) and specifically tailored to the needs of instructional designers and instructors teaching online. These principles are then used to assess the accessibility level of a sample online course and the availability of options in its…

Despite a plethora of online course offerings over the past decade, we continue to see resistance to this platform for course delivery, particularly with content that is ostensibly too sensitive or difficult to deliver in this format. This article describes an approach to online course planning and design, with attention paid to creating rich and…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to introduce and describe the features of a new e-learning quality framework developed for a large multi-campus university. The framework is explicitly designed to improve the quality of e-learning sites and the quality of online student learning, by developing the skills of the academics who design the sites.…

Prior research has highlighted the educational benefit of enabling students to participate in collaborative learning activities. Developing technology that extends the physical boundaries of the classroom and enables students to engage in meaningful collaborative learning activities outside class time can be of significant value. For any…

The purpose of this study was to examine the effectiveness of three different interface types on Web-based instruction: a text-based interface, a graphical interface and a metaphorical interface. In order to determine differences among three interface groups, we compared learning performance, cognitive load, usability, and appeal with various data…

In the winter of 2000, a class of K-8 preservice teachers were introduced to "TesselMania! Deluxe," a software product that visually and manually engages students in the study of transformations but, more specifically, tessellations. Prior to discussing the topic of transformations, students were only slightly familiar with two types of…

Guest lectures are a valuable resource in higher education. However, shrinking budgets make it difficult to bring in experts from remote areas of the globe. Videoconferencing, Michael Luck and Gerard Laurence believe, may be a cost-effective way to bring experts to the classroom. Luck and Laurence describe their 2003 study that formally evaluated…

The ability to interpret information from any source, and increasingly visual sources, is a vital skill for all graduates in contemporary culture. The development of the skills to read visual texts and communicate that understanding requires a certain level of critical thinking and reflection, skills which can only be developed over time, through…

This article explores whether WebCT, a virtual learning technology, meets organisational and customer goals at Coventry University Business School (CBS). Lecturer and student perceptions about the benefits of WebCT as a teaching and learning resource are examined as well as the goals of WebCT for the university as an organization. CBS students…

Many researchers and practitioners contend that all institutions respond to changing market need and can create competitive advantage through innovation and creativity. Each year, institutions expend significant resources developing new products and processes and yet research shows that more than half these initiatives fail. Successful…

For the twenty-eighth year, the Research and Theory Division of the Association for Educational Communications and Technology (AECT) is sponsoring the publication of these Proceedings. Papers published in this volume were presented at the National AECT Convention in Orlando, Florida. The Proceedings of AECT's Convention are published in two…