Increasingly researchers and practitioners have highlighted the importance of developing a sense of community in online courses and programs. However, many questions remain about the best ways to develop community in online courses. A recent literature review highlighted how influential Alfred P. Rovai's research has been to researchers of…

Humans have been learning at a distance for millennia. Modern information and communications technology has enabled formal distance education to be conducted online, though significant variation exists in purpose, course format, delivery methods, etc. Under duress of COVID-19, educators and students alike have been forced to engage in their…

Research suggests that video can improve social presence in online courses. Video, though, is not a panacea; rather the success of video use depends in part on how and when it is used. Online instructors are increasingly using video in various ways, but questions remain on which types of videos students value most when it comes to establishing…

Colleges and Universities have a more diverse student body than ever before--this includes a growing number of students with disabilities. Many of these students are attracted to the flexibility and anonymity of learning online. However, research suggests that students with disabilities often face barriers learning online. Given this, we set out…

Online educators regularly experiment with ways to create a sense of classroom community in the online courses they design and teach. They do this in part to battle feelings of isolation and loneliness but also to align with prevailing theories of learning (e.g., social constructivism) as well as to mimic idealized in-person face-to-face learning…

Feedback is an essential part of the learning process. Asynchronous online courses are marked by an abundance of text-based feedback. Yet, video feedback in asynchronous online courses is a nascent field of inquiry. This study investigated student perceptions of screencasting style of video feedback in online courses. During this course, students…

COVID-19 caused universities around the world to transition overnight to some type of remote learning or online format. The way this occurred, though necessary, was a departure from the standards and norms of traditional distance education and was a drastic change for the majority of faculty and students who had no prior experience with remote,…

Discussion boards can provide a glimpse into the regular and substantive interaction required in online courses. Advances in technology and an increased interest in learning analytics now provides researchers with billions of data points about instructor and student interaction within a learning management system (LMS). This study used LMS data to…

The higher education market space has become increasingly competitive during the past few years. For instance, there are now hundreds of fully online master's programs in educational technology. Given this increased competition, it is more important than ever for those working in graduate education to understand what students, and specifically…

As enrollments in postsecondary online programs have grown, many institutions have pursued a more centralized business model that consolidates their online programming under a single executive leader, a statewide system office, or a coalition of institutions that have merged operations and assets. In this study, the researchers used an exploratory…

Interest in accessibility has grown recently. Despite this, we have found that most people focus too much on compliance and often on the fundamental elements of creating compliant online courses. Instructional designers and online educators often turn to popular quality assurance frameworks to help them design and develop quality online courses.…

Community and connectedness are important concepts in online higher education. However, researchers debate how they are defined, operationalized, or enacted in practice. A scoping study was conducted to review the research literature on the extent, range, and nature of research in community and connectedness in online higher education. A total of…

Online learning can potentially meet increasingly diverse students' needs in higher education, including disabled students. However, institutions have historically struggled in providing accessible and inclusive online learning. Higher education online learning leaders, those who manage instructional designers, are in a unique position to help…

Asynchronous video-based discussions have affordances that can address some of the constraints of asynchronous text-based discussions. However, little research has been conducted on the use of asynchronous video-based discussions in online courses. As a result, the purpose of this exploratory study was to investigate students' perceptions of using…

Researchers have been investigating social presence in online learning for decades. However, despite this continued research, questions remain about the nature and development of social presence. The purpose of this mixed method exploratory case study was to investigate how social presence is established in online discussion forums in an…