We report on a case study of high Japanese student failure rates in an online MBA programme. Drawing on interviews, and reviews of exam and assignment scripts we frame the problems faced by these students in terms of a "language as social practice" approach and highlight the students' failure to understand the specific language games…

Slowly but surely, open and distance learning (ODL) programmes are being regarded as one of the most practical ways that universities across the world are increasingly adopting in order to increase access to university education. Likewise, Mzuzu University (MZUNI) set up the Centre for Open and Distance Learning (CODL) to oversee the running of…

The concept of language learner autonomy has influenced Computer-Assisted Language Learning (CALL) to the extent that Schwienhorst (2012) informs us of a paradigm change in CALL design in the light of learner autonomy. CALL is not considered a tool anymore, but a learner environment available to language learners anywhere in the world. Based on a…

Online communication is increasingly used in education, but it is not without problems. One significant difficulty is a lack of social presence. Social presence relates to the need for users of technology-based communication to perceive each other as real people. Low social presence can be a particular issue in text-based, asynchronous systems…

Higher education in Tanzania like in many other Sub-Saharan countries suffers from unavailability of quality teaching and learning resources due to lack of tradition, competence, and experience to develop such resources. Nevertheless, there are thousands of open educational resources (OER) freely available in the public domain that can potentially…

This study draws on the experience of a cohort of 22 students from 09 tutorial centers enrolled in a Master of Education (M Ed) distance learning program administered by the Bangladesh Open University (BOU). It's purpose is to locate the aims and philosophies of distance learning within the experiences of actual distance learners in order to see…

Quality education may be termed as the primary way that leads to development of nations and can play an exclusive role in maintaining the standards of education. It is understood that using conventional teaching methods, desired products cannot be achieved; making the need for modern approaches to be evolved for sound qualitative work. The target…

In most open and distance learning institutions, the development of learning materials, whether in print or electronic form, is created by teams consisting of people with different skills. Team communication has a critical influence on the development of team shared mental models (SMMs) as well as team performance. A review of the literature…

There is a perfect storm brewing in post-secondary education (PSE) in Ontario. Four major forces are combining in this storm, an ever growing higher education participation rate, the growing demand for effective and timely knowledge delivery, the need to drastically alter how one views teaching and learning, and accelerated technological changes.…

In the present day open and distance education has become a significant way of the development of higher education. Bangladesh Open University (BOU), the only public institution in Bangladesh offers several formal and non-formal programs from secondary to post graduate level through distance mode. The main objectives of BOU's program is to provide…

Bangladesh Open University (BOU) runs school programs as part of its academic activities through open schooling since its inception. As of today, the Open School uses the first generation self-learning materials (SLMs) written, before an era, following an in-house style and template. The concerned faculty member corrects, every year, texts before…

Inspection of thousands of student responses to computer-marked assessment questions has brought insight into the errors made by adult distance learners of science. Most of the questions analysed were in summative use and required students to construct their own response. Both of these things increased confidence in the reliability of the…

This article highlights key theoretical and methodological issues and implications of being an insider/outsider when undertaking qualitative research in international educational settings. It first addresses discourses of "self" and "other," noting that identity and belonging emerge from fluid engagement between researchers and…

The study focus the effectiveness of the M.A EPM program launched through distance education system of AIOU. For this purpose the performance of heads of educational institutions with and without M.A EPM degree was analyzed keeping in view different major aspects i.e. planning strategies, managerial approaches, coordination, administration and use…

The process of e-learning is the operations that involve humans, computers, the Internet, and instructional material, and that produces the outputs to learners and the organization. The purposes of this research were (1) to study students' readiness for e-learning of graduate students majoring in educational administration, School of Educational…