This article presents an interview with Sir John Daniel outgoing President and CEO of the Commonwealth of Learning. Sir John Daniel's term as President and Chief Executive Officer of the Commonwealth of Learning (COL) ended on May 31, 2012. Readers of "Distance Education" will know of Sir John's work at the Tele-universite (Directeur des…

Success in open educational resources (OER) has been reported by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the USA and the Open University in the UK, among others. It is unclear, however, how valuable OER are in learning and teaching. Approaches to OER policy and sustainability are just two other key aspects that remain unresolved across the…

This article focuses on the potential of free tools, particularly inquiry tools for influencing participation in twenty-first-century learning in science, as well as influencing the development of communities around tools. Two examples are presented: one on the development of an open source tool for structured inquiry learning that can bridge the…