By Kimberly Hefling. An international education institute is working to double the number of U.S. students studying abroad by 2019.
To reach the goal, the Institute of International Education will focus on recruiting more low-income students and others who have not participated in high numbers. Already, 160 colleges and universities have committed to participate.
The institute's campaign was being announced Monday.
Hundreds of thousands more international students annually come to the United States to study than the U.S. sends abroad. About 10 percent of U.S. students participate in some sort of study abroad program before graduation, with private liberal arts colleges, in particular, having higher participation rates. More...

By Stacie Nevadomski Berdan. The Institute of International Education (IIE) wants hundreds of thousands more U.S. students to study abroad by the end of the decade. That's a tall order, even for an organization considered to be the leader in international education exchange.
With the launch of Generation Study Abroad, a five-year initiative that seeks to build a coalition of leaders in education, business and government, IIE has set an ambitious goal of doubling the number of U.S. students studying abroad from 295,000 (Open Doors 2011/12) to 600,000. More...

2014 WISE Program for Education Leadership to Prepare Current and Emerging Higher Education Leaders from Developing Countries
The Qatar Foundation’s WISE Program for Education Leadership will hold its fifth annual workshop in Doha, Qatar from November 1 – 4, 2014. The goal of the WISE Program is to enhance leadership skills for new university presidents and emerging higher education leaders from developing countries.  Applicants must fulfill all of the following criteria in order to apply:

• The applicant must be a Vice Chancellor, Rector, President or chief executive officer at the university. The applicant must not be a subordinate official.
• The applicant must represent a higher education institution in a developing country
• The applicant must have assumed their current leadership position on or after January 1, 2013

Building upon the successes of the previous four years, the 2014 WISE Program will utilize the expertise of the 2014 Faculty Board to develop a robust and challenging workshop. More...

MERLOT Journal of Online Learning and Teaching, Vol. 10, No. 1, March 2014. Abstracts of papers in this issue. SPECIAL SECTION ON MASSIVE OPEN ONLINE COURSES (See also Vol. 9, No. 2, which is a full special issue on MOOCs.)
Teacher Experiences and Academic Identity: The Missing Components of MOOC Pedagogy - Abstract
By Jen Ross, Christine Sinclair, Jeremy Knox, Siân Bayne, and Hamish Macleod. The way teachers are represented in relation to m assive open online courses (MOOCs) has created a limited and unhelpful characterization of an important rol e. The key argument put forward in this position paper is that attending to the complexity of the MOOC teacher’s experience and identity will ultimately support productive dialogue about retention, access, and the meaning and purpose of the MOOC – dialogue that, at present, typically focuses on the student or the technology, but is silent on the matter of the teacher. The paper begins by exploring how common constructions of “the teacher” – as the charismatic celebrity professor, the co - learner or facilitat or, or the automated response – have emerged in the MOOC literature, and challenges the underlying assumptions about teaching. Its central section comprises an account of a team of MOOC teachers’ reflections on designing and teaching a MOOC–E-learning an d Digital Cultures, on the Coursera platform – and an exploration of how their experiences problematize common perceptions of the MOOC teacher. Finally, taking as an alternative starting point the higher education literature on academic identities, the aut hors highlight the complex effects of academic discipline, institution, and personal and professional values. See more...

MERLOT Journal of Online Learning and Teaching, Vol. 10, No. 1, March 2014. Abstracts of papers in this issue. SPECIAL SECTION ON MASSIVE OPEN ONLINE COURSES (See also Vol. 9, No. 2, which is a full special issue on MOOCs.)
MOOC Pedagogy: Gleaning Good Practice from Existing MOOCs - Abstract
By Maha Bali. The revolutionary potential of massive open online courses (MOOCs) has been met with much skepticism, particularly in terms of the quality of learning offered. Believing that a focus on learning is more important than a focus on course completion rates, this position paper presents a pedagogical assessment of MOOCs using Chickering and Gamson's Seven Principles of Good Practice in Undergraduate Education and Bloom's taxonomy, based on the author's personal experience as a learner in four xMOOCs. Although most xMOOCs have similar characteristics, the author shows that they are not all offered in exactly the same way, and some provide more sound pedagogy that develops higher order thinking, whereas others do not. The author uses this evaluation, as well as reviews of other xMOOCs in the literature, to glean some good pedagogical practices in xMOOCs and areas for improvement. See more...

MERLOT Journal of Online Learning and Teaching, Vol. 10, No. 1, March 2014. Abstracts of papers in this issue. SPECIAL SECTION ON MASSIVE OPEN ONLINE COURSES (See also Vol. 9, No. 2, which is a full special issue on MOOCs.)
  MOOCs: Striking the Right Balance between Facilitation and Self-Determination - Abstract
By Tita Beaven, Mirjam Hauck, Anna Comas-Quinn, Tim Lewis, and Beatriz de los Arcos. Recent research suggests that a growing proportion of formal learning occurs outside formal educational settings, where information and learning opportunities are mediated by technology. The rise of massive open online courses (MOOCs) in the last few years bears witness to this phenomenon. This contribution considers whether MOOCs afford a collaborative environment in which participants can develop the necessary literacy skills to become successful self - directed learners and members of online communities. It also discusses the extent to which self - determination and participatory literacy might be relevant for success in different types of MOOCs. The paper draws on data from OT12, an 8- week MOOC on open translation tools and practices run in 2012 by the Department of Languages of The Open University in the United Kingdom. The data consist of pre - and post - course surveys covering learners' backgrounds and prior experience of translation, expectations and challenges envisaged, and evaluation of outcomes. The authors conclude that to conceive of MOOCs as environments where individuals coalesce around a common endeavor is to raise a series of under - explored challenges. For organizers, the challenge lies in learning design and facilitation, and the extent to which their assumptions about the participants match the learners' capabilities. For learners, the challenge rests in self - determination and participatory literacy skills. See more...

MERLOT Journal of Online Learning and Teaching, Vol. 10, No. 1, March 2014. Abstracts of papers in this issue. SPECIAL SECTION ON MASSIVE OPEN ONLINE COURSES (See also Vol. 9, No. 2, which is a full special issue on MOOCs.)
  Participants' Perceptions of Learning and Networking in Connectivist MOOCs - Abstract
By Mohsen Saadatmand and Kristiina Kumpulainen. Massive open online cou rses (MOOCs) are growing exponentially in higher education. They have attracted the attention of higher education institutions, course designers, and policy makers. They challenge the mainstream of higher education and provide global learning opportunities to a huge number of students so they can learn anytime and anywhere. The value and applicability of the MOOC model in the current era of higher education and the nature of learning in such an open online format need to be investigated. This study focused on participants' experiences and perceived value of participation in connectivist MOOCs (cMOOCs) in terms of dealing with an abundance of resources and tools, learning activities, and network engagement. The results suggest a high extent of technology depl oyment for learning and interactions by the participants in cMOOCs. Creating networks and developing professional connections through networking technologies are advantages of participating in cMOOCs. The study's findings contribute to a better understanding of the nature of learning and participation in MOOCs from the perspective of students, who are the main stakeholders of such new learning experiences. See more...

MERLOT Journal of Online Learning and Teaching, Vol. 10, No. 1, March 2014. Abstracts of papers in this issue. SPECIAL SECTION ON MASSIVE OPEN ONLINE COURSES (See also Vol. 9, No. 2, which is a full special issue on MOOCs.)
Challenges to Research in MOOCs - Abstract
By Helene Fournier, Rita Kop, and Guillaume Durand. Over the past five years, the emergence of interactive social media has influenced the development of learning environments. Learning management systems have come to maturity, but because they are controlled by educational institutions and are subsequently used to support institutional learning, have been seen by learning technologists as not capturing the spirit and possibilitie s that new media have to offer for learning. Academics and researchers are currently investigating a different learning environment, more open and networked, while the underpinning learning theory is moving from social constructivism towards connectivism. Research in open learning environments is only in its infancy and researchers have only started to become interested in massive open online courses (MOOCs) as a topic of investigation. Recent research and development efforts have focused on generating tech nologies that might facilitate learning within a self - directed information and communication stream. In this paper, the authors report on an exploratory case study of PLENK, a connectivist - style MOOC, and highlight some of the challenges in the research an d analysis process, especially as significant amounts of both quantitative and qualitative data were involved. Important findings related to activity levels and important dimensions of self - directed learning in an open learning environment are presented. See more...

MERLOT Journal of Online Learning and Teaching, Vol. 10, No. 1, March 2014
CONTENTS
Abstracts of papers in this issue.
SPECIAL SECTION ON MASSIVE OPEN ONLINE COURSES (See also Vol. 9, No. 2, which is a full special issue on MOOCs.)

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The latest issue of the MERLOT Journal of Online Learning and Teaching (JOLT) includes a special section on MOOCs, which is now openly available online.
The MERLOT Journal of Online Learning and Teaching (JOLT) is a peer-reviewed, open-access, online publication that aims to promote scholarship in the use of the Internet and web-based multimedia resources in higher education. More...