The idea of social capital as the value obtainable from an individual's social relationships has been used to study many organizational and social settings, but rarely virtual environments. We used data from an online higher education institution to examine how an individual's social capital derived from her position in the social structure…

While the academic scholarship has been focused on the theoretical understanding of "online learning readiness," there has been limited exploration for its practical application. This research study aims to spotlight a novel paradigm of scholarly-practitioner approaches dedicated to thoroughly examining online readiness by employing a…

This study used the Community of Inquiry (CoI) framework to provide a collaborative experience for students from marginalised communities in a large enrollment module in South Africa. The CoI framework consists of three elements including the social, cognitive, and teaching presences. This study focused on the teaching presence element, along with…

A range of studies into the efficacy of online discussion forums is available, and this study seeks to add to the body of evidence around students' experiences of using online discussion forums within a distance learning context. The Open University (OU) is still the UK's largest provider of distance higher education. OU distance learners are…

Blackboard Collaborate (BC), a synchronous, multimodal platform, has been incorporated into Open University Australia (OUA) students' online learning experiences. This study sought to investigate the perspectives of 134 interdisciplinary OUA students via an online survey and follow-up interviews. Findings revealed students' positive perceptions…

Australian tertiary institutions offer online units to provide flexibility for students unable to attend classes on campus due to the constraints of distance and scheduling. While lecture materials and discussions can be accessed asynchronously, a synchronous element allows lecturers and students to interact in real time. Blackboard Collaborate,…

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…

Zimbabwe Open University (ZOU) has come up with the technology platform known as MyVista which can be used to fulfil teaching and learning activities online. However, it appeared that when the MyVista platform became fully operational from 2017, both students and staff members faced a lot of challenges. To investigate these challenges, this study…

Online learning environments afford opportunities for participation and equally offer a new perspective on engaging vicariously. Drawing on the concept of vicarious learning and taking account of the roles of input and interaction for language development, this paper reports on an enquiry into students' retrospective use of recorded group…

Today, more and more working adults are opting for the Open Distance Learning (ODL) mode to pursue their tertiary studies as it offers them the flexibility to study anywhere, any time and at one's own pace. But studying at a distance can be problematic for many learners, with the absence of regular traditional face-to-face sessions. Some find it…

This paper aims to develop a prototype of learning for the achievement of critical thinking skills of Higher Distance Education students through the utilization of open educational resources (OER). It is based on a research and development project conducted from September 2013 until April 2014 at Universitas Terbuka (UT), the Indonesia Open…

Undergraduate language students from the Open University (OU) and master's degree students from Aix-Marseille Université (AMU) participated in an innovative Virtual Exchange (VE) as part of our institutions' internationalisation at home strategy. Due to the pandemic, the one-week Residential School (RS) abroad, which is part of the Bachelor of…

Two free fully online courses were offered by Peoples-uni on its Open Online Courses site, both as self-paced courses available any time and as courses run over four weeks with tutor-led discussions. We tested the hypothesis that there are no measurable differences in outcomes between the two delivery methods. Similar numbers attended both…

This paper examines learner attitudes, self-efficacy beliefs, and anxiety in a beginners' Spanish Language Massive Open Online Course (LMOOC) by answering three research questions: (1) how do learners feel about acquiring speaking skills on an LMOOC?; (2) do they experience anxiety with regards to speaking?; and (3) do their self-efficacy beliefs…

Much research has been done on blended learning and the design of tasks most appropriate for online environments and computer-mediated communication. Increasingly, language teachers and Second Language Acquisition (SLA) practitioners recognise the different nature of communications in online settings and in face-to-face settings; teachers do not…