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…

The objective of this research was to develop non-test instrument or questionnaire to measure the evaluation of the use of Webtoon among the students of Open University in Pekanbaru, Riau, Indonesia and to obtain the instrument's validity and reliability. This research employed the Analysis, Design, Development, Implementation, Evaluation (ADDIE)…

This paper offers insights into the establishment of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) Chair of Open Distance Learning (ODL) at the University of South Africa (UNISA). The aim of the UNESCO Chair is to stimulate ODL research at UNISA. The paper briefly describes UNISA, which is the largest dedicated…

Purpose: Universities are continually transforming its structure and governance in response to the new social, environmental and economic challenges. Particularly, there has recently been a growing academic interest for measuring sustainable practices of higher education institutions (HEI) aiming to monitor and reduce their carbon emissions, as…

Isolation, lack of connection and/or belonging, difficulty maintaining engagement and motivation for learning are common complaints for students separated from teaching and support staff in distance education. Using a mixed-methods approach, this article utilises dimensions of student engagement: cognitive, emotional and social behaviour to argue…

In 2019, MDRC launched the Scaling Up College Completion Efforts for Student Success (SUCCESS) project to improve college completion rates for traditionally underserved students, such as students from low-income backgrounds and students of color, at community and broad-access colleges (those that have open or minimally selective admissions…

The study focuses on assessing the proficiency levels of higher education students, specifically the physics achievement test (PHY 101) at the National Open University of Nigeria (NOUN). This test, like others, evaluates various aspects of knowledge and skills simultaneously. However, relying on traditional models for such tests can result in…

This paper presents the first experiences of the use of an online open-source repository with programming exercises. The repository is independent of any specific teaching approach. Students can search for and select an exercise that trains the programming concepts that they want to train and that only uses the programming concepts they already…

The authors explored five in-service teachers' experiences of professional development (PD) in Studies in Writing (30 ECTS programme at a Finnish open university) they participated in during their leisure time. Data consist of the teachers' creative writings and semi-structured interviews. Reflexive thematic analysis was employed to holistically…

The study investigated student reaction to the alternative mechanics survey (AMS), a modified force concept inventory, which used automatically marked free-response questions and offered limited feedback to students after their answers had been submitted. Eight participants were observed in completing the AMS, and they were interviewed to gain…

During the coronavirus pandemic, nearly all forms of education underwent an online pivot, to some form of internet-based instruction. The UK Open University (UKOU), like many other distance education and online universities, found its expertise in designing and delivering effective online teaching in demand. This paper reports how the UKOU…

Cheating has been a long-standing issue in university assessments. However, the release of ChatGPT and other free-to-use generative AI tools has provided a new and distinct method for cheating. Students can run many assessment questions through the tool and generate a superficially compelling answer, which may or may not be accurate. We ran a…

Active learning in mathematics can lead to deeper understanding than passively listening to a lecture, yet recent studies indicate that didactic teaching dominates online tutorials. This study investigated student participation in three types of activity: solving mathematical problems via polling, on-screen activities on a shared whiteboard and…

Driven by competition amongst higher education institutions, increasing recognition of the benefits of international academic mobility, and the global pandemic, transnational distance education has accelerated in recent years. Despite its many advantages, quality assurance issues can pose significant obstacles to success. Using a collaborative…

Evaluating courses' impact on diverse stakeholders can be immensely valuable as a means of identifying ways in which curriculum can better support learners' personal and professional development and achieve wider societal aims. Yet, few empirical evaluation studies exist exploring the impact of microcredentials. This article reports a study…