Student retention rates are a constant concern in higher education, but this concern has become especially challenging as online courses become more common and there are widespread reports of low completion rates for online, self-study courses. We evaluated four self-study online pharmacy courses with a history of very high completion rates for…

In face-to-face instruction of "Reciprocal Teaching (RT)", students' reading processes and dialogues with their peers are hardly observed. As a result, the teacher has few clues to identify students' learning difficulties and provide further scaffoldings. To record students' reading processes and enhance their comprehension, this study reports on…

This study used an extensive online course evaluation inventory to analyze the subjects' perceptions of course effectiveness in the following subscales: flexibility, user interface, navigation, getting started, technical assistance, course management, universal design, communications, instructional design, and content. Survey results compared…

A pretest-posttest control group experimental design was used to evaluate the effectiveness of EnvisionIT, a 10-unit web-based curriculum designed to teach secondary students information technology (IT) skills in the context of transition-planning activities. Fifteen high schools were stratified by socioeconomic status and randomly assigned to the…

The answer to massification in higher education lies not in paper-behind-glass style e-learning. Such courses lack the necessary interaction to ensure success. There are perceived upper limits to where e-learning can be up scaled to accommodate large classes. The Community of Inquiry framework provides a convenient instrument to assess the quality…

In recent years, the application of virtual reality (VR) technology in education is rapidly gaining momentum. The educational benefits offered by such technology have prompted many educators as well as instructional designers to investigate ways to create effective and engaging VR learning. Instructional designers have examined widely the…

Two common web-based surveys, "Is Online Learning Right for Me?' and "What Technical Skills Do I Need?", were combined into a single survey instrument and given to 228 on-campus and 83 distance education students. The students were enrolled in four different classes (business, computer information services, criminal justice, and…

This article describes a collaborative study of the blended learning approach, designed to pave the way for higher education students to integrate online and face-to-face learning environments in an "Instructional Technology and Material Development" course at the University of Yildiz Technic in Turkey. The purpose of this study is to…

This paper addresses human resources utilization at the university environment. We address the design issues of e-learning courses that can capture the teacher knowledge. The underlying objective is that e-learning is a key knowledge and major resources for many universities. Therefore, the design of e-learning should be an important part of the…

In today's world, it is acknowledged by almost all folks of life that the traditional educational institutions are inadequate in educating the growing population. This situation has triggered research into finding ways to provide economical and of high quality education to wider masses of people. Currently, web based instruction seems to be the…

A primary goal of the Nebraska Center for Research on Children, Youth, Families and Schools (CYFS) is to create, nurture, and develop an environment that builds capacity for a strong relationship between researchers and community partners for the conduct of high-quality research that translates into effective community-based practices. The…

Managing the design and production of online courses is challenging. Insufficient instructional design and inefficient management often lead to issues such as poor course quality and course delivery delays. In an effort to facilitate, streamline, and improve the overall design and production of online courses, this article discusses how we…

Metaphor appears to be an innate tendency in human communication and can be shown to have significant potential when applied to the design of online learning environments. This paper describes and discusses an example of an online research methods learning resource that employs metaphoric navigation. Feedback from the tutors who design and…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to review cross-disciplinary research on e-learning from workplace learning, educational technology, and instructional communication disciplines to identify relevant e-learning design principles. It aims to use these principles to propose an e-learning model that can guide the design of instructionally sound,…

Student affairs educators and academic faculty continue to respond to demands that they become more accountable; conduct better assessments of learning outcomes; and demonstrate, through evaluation, the contributions they make to institutional missions. In this article, the authors bring together multiple resources selected for their potential to…