Nowadays, the virtual learning environment has become an ideal tool for professional self-development and bringing courses for various learner audiences across the world. There is currently an increasing interest in researching the topic of learner dropout and low completion in distance learning, with one of the main concerns being elevated rates…

The School of Languages and Applied Linguistics at the Open University (OU) radically re-designed its modern languages curriculum in 2014, launching its first suite of new modules in 2017. The institution as a whole has since also developed a new employability framework. Our paper describes the principles underpinning the design of the new…

Management education market has expanded enormously across the world. Business Schools in general and Open University Management Schools in particular have been at the forefront of introducing the use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) into knowledge dissemination. Technology enabled management education facilitates change in the…

The School of Science and Technology of "Yashwantrao Chavan Maharashtra Open University (YCMOU)" has proposed to offer "Web Based Live Teaching Learning Support" from "real" teacher, with "Live Virtual Online Class (LVOC)" integrated with "Learning Management System (LMS)" for all courses of all…

This paper describes a social partnership model based on the living lab concept to promote the professional development of educators through formal and informal capacity-building initiatives. The aim is to have a broader impact on society through community outreach educational initiatives. A Living Lab is an environment for user-centered…

Distance education and its relationship to emerging computer technologies have together offered many promises to the field of education. In practice however, the combination often falls short of what it attempts to accomplish some of the short comings are due to problems with the technology; others have more to do with administration,…

This paper discusses the critical situations I have been asked to "improve" by providing professional development for teams of adult numeracy and functional mathematics teachers in the post-16 sector in London. These situations have not been identified through any research process, but arise from internal management reviews of course…

SUNY-wide, the online horse has left the gate. Meanwhile, campuses contend with traditional means for evaluating teaching effectiveness that do not match up against the latest standards for online instruction. Following a discussion of some of the core considerations that individual campuses need to address in responding to Open SUNY, the author…

Recently there has been growing concern about the ways in which professional values such as "acknowledging diversity and promoting equality of opportunity" (Higher Education Academy (HEA), 2006, p. 4) have been understood and evidenced in higher education. In this article, we outline how the Learning to Teach Inclusively open educational…

The Open and Distance Learning (ODL) has come to stay as an alternative mode to meet the higher educational requirements of diverse groups. Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU), a system leader in India, plays a major role in giving access and equity, besides maintaining and coordinating standards of distance education in the country.…

This paper describes the internal motivations and external drivers that led The Open University UK to enter the field of Open Educational Resources through its institution-wide OpenLearn initiative (www.open.ac.uk/openlearn). It also describes some of the emerging evidence of the impacts inside and outside the university. Through the rapid…

There has been much discussion in this journal of the development of the scholarship of teaching and learning. Indeed the effective enhancement of teaching and learning is more likely to take place when generic lessons are contextualized within the language of the discipline, and adapted to the needs of the students. We describe here a study of…

This paper reviews the role of assessment in student learning and its relationship with the use of information and communication technologies (ICT). There is ample evidence of technology-led innovations failing to achieve the transformations expected by educators. We draw upon existing research to illustrate the links between aspects of student…

A major strand of science and technology studies in recent decades has related to the social construction of technology (SCOT) movement, whose adherents maintain that technological systems are determined just as much by social forces as by technological ones. Taking this SCOT notion as a starting point, and putting a focus on the user, this paper…

The term "open university" was coined by that visionary "seedsman" of reformist ideas Michael Young in an article for a 1962 number of "Where?" magazine. He proposed an "open university" to prepare people for external degrees at London University, with three key functions: (1) to organise new and better…