Table of Contents

Editorial

Research Articles

Field Notes

Notes from Leadership in Open and Distance Learning

Book Notes

Book review - Learning theory and online technologies Diane Carver

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Proponents of open educational resources claim that significant cost savings are possible when open textbooks displace traditional textbooks in the classroom. Over a period of two years, we worked with 20 middle and high school science teachers (collectively teaching approximately 3,900 students) who adopted open textbooks to understand the process and determine the overall cost of such an adoption. More...

The increased demand and need for continuous learning have led to the introduction of open, distance, and e-learning (ODeL) in Kenya. Provision of this mode of education has, however, been faced with various challenges, among them infrastructural ones. This study was a survey conducted in two public universities offering major components of ODeL, the University of Nairobi and Kenyatta University. More...

The National Open University of Nigeria (NOUN) is Nigeria’s only university dedicated to providing education through the use of distance instructional methods. So far, however, the lack of availability and poor distribution of course materials, which underpin instructional delivery at NOUN, continue to be hindrances to achieving the university’s vision and mission. More...

Open educational resources (OERs) have the potential to reduce costs, improve quality, and increase access to educational opportunities. OER development and deployment is one path that could contribute to achieving education for all. This article builds on existing information and communication technology (ICT) implementation plans in Africa and on the experiences of organizations and initiatives such as the African Virtual University (AVU), OER Africa, the South African Institute of Distance Education (SAIDE), and the Teacher Education in Sub-Saharan Africa (TESSA) Project, to present one view of the benefits, challenges, and steps that could be taken to realize the potential of OERs in sub-Saharan Africa. More...

Flexibility in learning provides a student room for volitional control and an array of strategies and encourages persistence in the face of difficulties. Autonomy in and control over one’s learning process can be seen as a condition for self-regulated learning. More...

Open educational resources (OER) are a global phenomenon that is fast gaining credibility in many academic circles as a possible solution for bridging the knowledge divide. With increased funding and advocacy from governmental and nongovernmental organisations paired with generous philanthropy, many OER repositories, which host a vast array of resources, have mushroomed over the years. More...

An important element of open educational resources (OER) is the permission to use the materials in new ways, including revising and remixing them. Prior research has shown that the revision and remix rates for OER are relatively low. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Musings on the Economics of Commercial and Open Educational Resources
David Wiley, iterating toward openness, 2016/03/01
"The market for textbooks is distorted," argues Phil Hill. "There is absolutely no reason that a digital textbook rental should cost five times what a physical textbook rental costs." I would pause to observe that the use of the word 'distorted' implies there is some 'natural' state of the market, from which I guess we could infer what prices 'should' be, but of course there is no such thing. But I digress. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Experience API (xAPI): Potential for Open Educational Resources – Part 3
Classroom Aid, 2016/02/25
This is the third part of a series (part 1, part 2, part 3) on the eXperience API, and in particular, linked data. "Linked Data, frequently described as “the Semantic Web done right” by the Inventor of the World Wide Web Tim Berners-Lee, has emerged as the de facto standard for sharing semantic data on the web," writes the author. More...