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Open and distance learning (ODL) is increasingly being regarded as a viable policy option for developing countries with limited educational resources for buildings, books and trained teachers, seeking to increase accessibility for large numbers of learners in education and training opportunities. Advocates of ODL as an appropriate solution to development issues tend to emphasise the hardware and software (curricula, materials and media of instruction and delivery, and especially ICTs) rather than the learning support needed (See, for example, World Bank, 2002). More...

The axiom of humanity’s basic need to communicate provides the impetus to explore the nature and quality of computer-mediated communication as a vehicle for learning in higher education. This exploratory study examined the experiential communication perceptions of online doctoral students during the infancy of their program. Eighty-five students were electronically queried through a 32 item open-ended questionnaire within a 13 day time frame. More...

No topic raises more contentious debate among educators than the role of interaction as a crucial component of the education process. This debate is fueled by surface problems of definition and vested interests of professional educators, but is more deeply marked by epistemological assumptions relative to the role of humans and human interaction in education and learning. The seminal article by Daniel and Marquis (1979) challenged distance educators to get the mixture right between independent study and interactive learning strategies and activities. More...

This article seeks to identify critical success factors for the appropriate infusion of instructional technologies to advance open learning in higher education within developing settings. Describe here is a descriptive account of a two-year case study based on the author’s personal analysis of, and reflection on, factors that contributed to the infusion of instructional technologies to advance open learning at the University of Botswana. More...

This article reports the experience of an e-Learning pilot project selected by the Educational Technology Unit (EduTech) of the Centre for Academic Development (CAD), University of Botswana (UB). This e-Learning package was designed and delivered in connection with the three-credit course “Issues and Trends in Early Childhood Education” (EPI-642), which is required for the first year of the master’s program in the Department of Primary Education. More...

The present paper (a) outlines the basic features of the Personalized System of Instruction (PSI); (b) provides a brief history of PSI; and (c) describes the application of PSI to distance education. Some common misconceptions about PSI are also addressed. PSI is presented as a helpful universally applicable set of instructional practices that are well suited to distance teaching and learning. More...

This meta-analysis research estimated and compared the differences between the academic performance of students enrolled in distance education courses relative to those enrolled in traditional settings, as demonstrated by their final course grades/ scores within the 1990-2002 period. More...

The University of Oklahoma's College of Liberal Studies was established as an academic unit in 1960, and provides interdisciplinary education to non-traditional students with programs for Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Liberal Studies. In the Fall of 2003, the College offered both degrees in a fully online format, with no student residency requirements. More...

The widespread diffusion of e-Learning in organizations has encouraged the discovery of more effective ways for conveying digital information to learners, for instance, via the commonly called Learning Management Systems (LMS). A problem that we have identified is that cognitive variables and pedagogical processes are rarely taken into consideration and sometimes are confused with the mere use by learners of “diversified” hypermedia resources. More...