The purpose of this research was to perform a three way comparison of delivery modes for an introductory Management Information Systems course to determine if there existed a difference in student success among the delivery modes. The research compares student exam and final grade results in this class that was taught by the same instructor using…

This study was designed primarily to examine how synchronous communication facilitated graduate students' online collaboration and their perceptions of synchronous communication. Thirty online graduate students were required to use instant messenger (IM) to discuss their group projects and later post their reflections on their collaboration. The…

This report is focused on the use of affective pointers (acknowledgements and hedges) detected in exchanges between learners and tutors on asynchronous mathematics online help sites. In this environment, both students and tutors use feedback in form of acknowledgements to control communication and assess its success. Hedges, or insecurities, point…

The fast development of information and communication technologies (ICT) improves greatly education quality. E-learning is an important education component at Zagreb School of Economics and Management (ZSEM) and, in addition, it is obligatory for all our teachers and students. In this paper, the development process of course "Sociology"…

This article presents research based on highly structured and self-managed discussions in the university context. The main question answered by this study is about the value and effectiveness of these virtual tools for teaching and learning, in terms of the types of knowledge built and the relationship between this knowledge and the academic…

The study explores the e-learning system of the Computer-Based Agricultural Extension Program (CBAES) and examines the differences in user satisfaction and preferences between the two systems for Agricultural Education and Extension at the Rural Development Administration (RDA) in Korea. It also describes the architecture, services, user…

This report provides national estimates on distance education at degree-granting postsecondary institutions in the 2006-07 academic year. While this report covers many of the topics in the previous three reports, the data are not comparable. The definition of distance education in the 2006-07 study reflected two major changes from earlier studies.…

This qualitative study examined the process of adopting online education at three private colleges. All three institutions participating in the study were private Catholic colleges that offered their first online courses in the late 1990s. The research question posed for this study was: Within the participating institutions, how did online…

This study investigated whether two different versions of an online professional development course produced different impacts on the intended outcomes of the course. Variations of an online course for middle school algebra teachers were created for two experimental conditions. One was an actively facilitated course with asynchronous peer…

Because of the perceived advantages and the promotion of Web-based learning environments (WBLEs) by commercial interests as well as educational technologists, knowing how to develop and implement WBLEs will probably not be a choice, but a necessity for most educators and trainers in the future. However, many instructors still don't understand the…

The purpose of this case study is to understand ways to plan, organize and facilitate experiences in which experts who are geographically dispersed act as effective consultants. Graduate students enrolled in an advanced course in instructional technology at a large university in the Midwestern United States interacted with colleagues studying at a…

In this article we describe the MentorBlog project, which facilitated the mentoring of trainee teachers in the postcompulsory education sector through the use of blogs. In an experimental design, the study compared their experiences with students who received traditional mentoring. Blogs were used by the trainees to communicate with their mentors…

The coming era of Web 2.0 focuses on users' active online participation and interaction. Among such interactive media, the blog is one representative tool of online knowledge construction. The purpose of this study is to explore the behavioral patterns and the depth of knowledge construction when using blogs for teachers' professional development.…

This article examines key issues in how new technologies are impacting upon how we teach, learn and collaborate, and uses an educational research project called GRAIL (Graduate Researcher's Academic Identity Online) under development to illustrate some fundamental issues in adopting new technologies. A significant challenge to the effective use of…

Asynchronous text based discussion boards are included in many online courses, however strategies to compare their use within and between courses, from a disciplinary standpoint, have not been well documented in the literature. The goal of this project was to develop a multi-factor metric which could be used to characterize discussion board use in…