A review of multiple online courses at one institution was conducted by a skilled screen reader user for the purpose of assessing the extent to which the courses were navigable and understandable to online students using assistive technologies. This paper identifies features of online courses that may present problems for screen reader users and…

For students with disabilities to have the same opportunities to succeed as their nondisabled peers, access to educational technology and digital content is critical. It is essential that higher education boards, administrators, faculty, and administrative staff understand why accessibility must be on the forefront of our educational programs,…

Higher education institutions (HEIs) in Africa face the challenge of responding to the expanding demand for tertiary education while maintaining or enhancing the quality of their course offerings. This demand has led to some HEIs introducing the use of interactive web technologies to support their distance teaching and learning practices. However,…

In the last several years, a variety of approaches and tools have been developed for giving access to open educational resources (OER) related to food safety, security, and food standards, as well to various targeted audiences (e.g., farmers, agronomists). The aim of this paper is to present a technology infrastructure currently in demonstration…

Are online activities devoid of emotion and social intelligence? Graduate students in online and blended programs at Texas Tech University and the University of Memphis were surveyed about how often they laughed, felt other emotions, and expressed social intelligence. Laughter, chuckling, and smiling occurred "sometimes" as did other…

Though online enrollments continue to accelerate at a rapid pace, there is significant concern over student retention. With drop rates significantly higher than in face-to-face classes it is imperative that online providers develop an understanding of factors that lead students to disenroll. This study utilizes a data mining approach to examine…

The Center for eLearning was established at Florida Atlantic University (FAU) as a result of a university-wide task force. A brief overview of the center's start-up activity is followed by a thorough report of the first faculty development program created and implemented. The structure of the program is described, and data are provided showing…

The pace of globalization coupled with growing institutional pursuit of online education means that online classes are increasingly composed of a multi-national, multi-ethnic, and multi-cultural student body. Teaching presence, which is the ability to structure the class, create the social environment, give instruction, and assess student work, is…

In today's world where tuition fees continue to rise rapidly and the demand for higher education increases in both the developing and developed world, it is important to find additional and alternative learning pathways that learners can afford. Traditional education as we have known it has begun to change, allowing for new parallel learning…

In order for faculty to make a successful transition to teaching in the online classroom, they must receive professional development specifically geared toward this challenge. Bay Path College offers a faculty development program that incorporates three distinct components all geared toward aiding faculty to adjust to teaching online and providing…

Research conducted in various settings suggests that preparation and support for online instructors should be considered separately from comparable efforts for instructors in face-to-face environments. However, few studies provide empirical data that outline the ways in which preparation to teach online should differ, and only a handful link these…

Research is limited on how metacognition is facilitated and manifested in socially situated online learning environments such as online discussion forums. We approached metacognition as the phenomenon of interest partly through a methodological objective to evaluate the relevance of a metacognition construct and partly through a content objective…

Despite high enrollment numbers, postsecondary completion rates have generally remained unchanged for the past 30 years and half of these students do not attain a degree within six years of initial enrollment. Although online learning has provided students with a convenient alternative to face-to-face instruction, there remain significant…

This study compares dialogic behavior in asynchronous course forums from blended learning environments with "non"-mandatory student participation at a campus-based college and at a distance education, Open University. The goal is to document similarities and differences in students' and instructors' dialogic behavior that occur in two similar…

Online higher education has attained scale and is poised to take the next step in its growth. Although significant obstacles to a full scale adoption of online education remain, we will see full scale adoption of online higher education within the next five to ten years. Practically all higher education students will experience online education in…