Shifting from an emphasis on teaching to learning is a complex task for both teachers and students. This paper reports on a qualitative study of teachers in a nurse specialist education programme meeting this shift in a distance education course. More...

The shift to technology-mediated modes of instructional delivery and increased global connectivity has led to the rise in globalized e-learning programs. Educational institutions face multiple challenges as they seek to design effective, engaging, and culturally competent instruction for an increasingly diverse learner population. More...

As video-based instructional materials become available to distance learners to learn practical skills at a distance, it is important to assess the instructional effectiveness of these materials and to understand how students respond to them. More...

Role play activities provide opportunities for learners to adopt unfamiliar roles, engage in interactions with others, and get involved in realistic tasks. They are often recommended to foster the development of soft skills and a wider perspective of the world. More...

The role of social presence as defined by the community of inquiry (CoI) framework is critiqued through a review of recent literature. Evidence is presented that questions the actual extent of knowledge co-construction that occurs in most higher education settings and therefore challenges the framework’s underlying assumption of the need for sustained, contiguous, two-way communication in higher-level online learning environments. More...

The aim of this paper is to bring theoretical concepts from other areas of scholarly research to bear on synchronous online education in a cross-disciplinary effort to shed light on what is going on by introducing systems of thought from other areas. More...

Many college students and their families are concerned about the high costs of textbooks. A company called Flat World Knowledge both gives away and sells open-source textbooks in a way it believes to be financially sustainable. This article reports on the financial sustainability of the Flat World Knowledge open-source textbook model after one year of operation. More...

The exploration of study orchestrations emphasises students’ active participation in learning, describing the ways in which they marshal the resources available to them in response to their learning environment. This study reports the identification of study orchestrations in a group of distance students and identifies the existence of dissonant study orchestrations, which previous research has linked with poor achievement, in approximately one-fifth of the group. More...

Table of Contents

Editorial

Research Articles

Research Notes

Book Notes

The impact of e-learning programs on the internationalization of the university Nataly Tcherepashenets

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IRRODL Volume 12, Number 5

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The Arctic is a vast, sparsely populated area. The demographic situation points to online distance education as a solution to support lifelong learning and to build competence in the region. More...