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…

With the growing demand for tertiary education, especially in Africa, the transformation of contact universities to dual-mode institutions is critical. However, conventional universities have had limited success establishing the dual-mode delivery stream. This paper assesses barriers to adoption and implementation of open and distance learning…

Attitudes toward technology are preconceived notions that affect the teaching-learning process and the academic-professional performance of students, in particular those who use technology. This investigation has two objectives: to test the measuring properties (reliability, factorial structure) of an instrument that measures attitudes and to…

Online learning has attracted a large number of participants and is increasingly becoming very popular. However, the completion rates for online learning are notoriously low. Further, unlike traditional education systems, teachers, if any, are unable to comprehensively evaluate the learning gain of each student through the online learning…

Throughout 2020, and into 2021, national governments were forced at different times to impose 'lockdown' on traditional approaches to education to cope with the impact of COVID-19. Higher education institutions (HEI) with face-to-face models scrambled to 'pivot' to distance and online learning. Whilst originally conceived as a temporary measure,…

In response to global and local needs, the South African government increasingly enables distance education through legislation and policy, and many traditional public higher education institutions have turned to dual-mode delivery of their programmes. This decision is often based on a desire for new market growth and firmly embedded in…

There is an urgent need to develop an evidence-based framework for learning analytics whereby stakeholders can manage, evaluate, and make decisions about which types of interventions work well and under which conditions. In this article, we will work towards developing a foundation of an Analytics4Action Evaluation Framework (A4AEF) that is…

Millions of users around the world have registered on Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) offered by hundreds of universities (and other organizations) worldwide. Creating and offering these courses costs thousands of pounds. However, at present, revenue generated by MOOCs is not sufficient to offset these costs. The sustainability of MOOCs is a…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to investigate a model for facilitating employees' and full-time, non-business students' entrepreneurial capabilities during their optional entrepreneurship studies at one Finnish Open University. Design/methodology/approach: The case study investigates the course in which transitions from employees or…

The quality of the programmes and courses in ODL depends on the academics that plan the programmes, develop the curriculum, manage courses and programmes and carry out administrative duties. It is observed that the academics often complain of work overload. It also appears there is a mix-up in integrating the mode of planning workload in the…

The number of students engaged in Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) is increasing rapidly. Due to the autonomy of students in this type of education, students in MOOCs are required to regulate their learning to a greater extent than students in traditional, face-to-face education. However, there is no questionnaire available suited for this…

This book demonstrates teachers' and learners' experiences with big data in education; education and cloud computing; and new technologies for teacher support. It also discusses the advantages of using these frontier technologies in teaching and learning and predicts the future challenges. As such, it enables readers to better understand how…

This paper discusses the implementation of a university teaching module, based on Lucy Green's (2008) informal music learning model. The synergy between Green's model and Paulo Freire's critical pedagogy is addressed through explanation of the module and its practices. The module was offered six times, from 2011 to 2016, as an action research…

It is important for distance learning institutions to be well prepared before designing and implementing any new technology based learning system to justify the investment and minimize failure risk. It can be achieved by systematically assessing the readiness of all stakeholders. This paper first proposes an m-readiness assessment process and…

Historically, in Southern Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe, Standards 3, 4, 5 and 6 would teach during the school term and attend teacher training during the school holidays. This was mostly in Missionary institutions. Later, these organisations changed into full-time teacher training institutions. Then teacher training lasted two years. Students would…