We are in the age of information and communication technology (ICT), where the learning communities (i.e., learners, teachers, scholars, etc.), mainly in higher education domains, are more technology dependent. The stakeholders always handle advanced research, study and technologies, and therefore they need some authentic and updated information…

This paper presents a novel approach to designing an online, open-source course in systems librarianship, an area of librarianship that may be perceived as complex and intimidating because of the technologies involved. The course design focuses on making systems librarianship more approachable for library and information science students who may…

Multi-User Virtual Environments (MUVEs) have gained more prominence in education of late; however, the question of their theoretically sound implementation remains relatively understudied. The current article addresses this gap through the explanation of how a MUVE platform Second Life was used in an undergraduate course for pre-service teachers.…

As the costs of scholarly and educational publications skyrocket, open educational resources (OER) are becoming an important way to provide content and enhance the teaching and learning experience. Librarians have a key role to play in developing, advocating, and managing OER. For many librarians, however, championing OERs means adding an…

In the spirit of exploration, this paper discusses the what, why and how of unconferencing and explores its implications as a transformative approach to faculty development in higher education. The authors define an unconference faculty development experience as: a less-structured opportunity for participants to learn and grow by sharing…

Opening with the history, recent advances, and emerging ways to use avatar-based virtual reality, an instructor who has used virtual environments since 2007 shares how these environments bring more options to community building, teaching, and education. With the open-source movement, where the source code for virtual environments was made…

A considerable interest in using three-dimensional multi-user virtual worlds for different educational disciplines has been widely observed. Despite the potential benefits of this technology, many questions still remain open, as far as the design of appropriate activities in well-defined instructional design frameworks and their effectiveness on…

The LLAS Centre for Languages, Linguistics and Area Studies, at the University of Southampton, UK, has led a number of projects aimed at creating and building communities of sharers and users of open educational resources (OERs). We have worked with very different groups within the language teaching community to raise awareness about OERs,…

As higher education embraces the ideologies of the market, educators are being asked to teach evermore students with fewer resources. Running counter to the trend of marketization, a decentralized group of educators are taking advantage of Web 2.0 technologies (including Facebook, Twitter, and blogging platforms such as Wordpress, etc.) to…

One of the main barriers to the reuse of Open Educational Resources (OER) is language (OLnet, 2009). OER may be available but in a language that users cannot access, so a preliminary step to reuse is their translation or localization. One of the obvious solutions to the vast effort required to translate OER is to crowd-source the translation, as…

The faculty of a large southeastern university were brought together to form a "community of faculty." With support from a federal grant we set out to build what came to be called the Faculty Toolbox. This website serves as a public repository that brought together the faculty to share and contribute to its library of shared resources.…

The Open Educational Resources (OER) movement and the Open Access began only over a decade ago. During this period, the progress of the Open Educational Resources movement took place in developed countries for the most part. Recently, new projects have begun to emerge with a strong emphasis on open education. Yet, the concept of openness in…

The use of large online discussion forums within online and distance learning continues to grow. Recent innovations in online learning such as the MOOC (massive open online course) and concomitant growth in the use of online media for the delivery of courses in traditional campus based universities provide both opportunity and challenge for online…

Purpose: This paper aims to report on an externally-funded project and forms part of its dissemination. Design/methodology/approach: The objectives are achieved through a theoretical framing of the project and an alignment of these with the contexts for the project--namely the Professional Standards Framework of the HEA, its use in postgraduate…

This paper describes the implementation of an online discussion forum as a means of facilitating case-based learning in an intermediate financial accounting course. The paper commences with a review of case-based learning literature and the use of online discussions as a delivery platform, linking these pedagogical approaches to the emerging needs…