The use of Free and Open Source Software (FOSS), a subset of Information and Communication Technology (ICT), can reduce the cost of purchasing software. Despite the benefit in the initial purchase price of software, deploying software requires total cost that goes beyond the initial purchase price. Total cost is a silent issue of FOSS and can only…

Flipped course is used in well-developed educational institutions and technologically developed countries. It is quite experimental in nature for resource restricted educational institutions and developing countries. In this paper such cases are considered, where faculties make use of free resources available for conducting flipped courses.…

City University London committed in 2009 to make Moodle the Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) at the core of a new Strategic Learning Environment (SLE) comprised of VLE, externally facing website and related systems such as video streaming and virtual classrooms. Previously, the WebCT VLE had been separate from most of the other systems at the…

It is often too complicated or expensive for most educators, non-profits and individuals to create and maintain a multilingual Web site, because of the technological hurdles, and the logistics of working with content in different languages. But multilingual content management systems, combined with streamlined processes and inexpensive…

The open educational resource (OER) movement has reached a critical mass due to recent technology advancements. In Taiwan, to overcome the language barrier, the Opensource Opencourse Prototype System (OOPS) plays a significant role in enabling Chinese-speaking users to benefit from this global education movement. However, our understanding about…

There have been numerous calls for research that demonstrates how open education resources (OERs) are actually being used. This case study sought to shed light on the users of a well-visited set of modular music-education materials published at Connexions. Respondents to a voluntary survey included teachers, students, self-directed learners, music…

This dissertation aims to investigate how advanced information technologies cope with the various demands of disaster response. It consists of three essays on the exploration of micro-blogging and FOSS environments. The first essay looks at the usage of micro-blogging in the aftermath of the massive 2008 China earthquake and explores the…

A lot of studies have investigated the isolated use of threaded discussion and wiki technologies to facilitate collaboration in online learning settings. Nevertheless, the integration of both technologies into a potentially superior collaborative learning tool has not been explicitly investigated. This manuscript reports on an effort to undertake…

Virtual worlds are highly immersive, engaging and popular computer mediated environments being explored by children and adults. Why then aren't more teachers using virtual worlds in the classroom with primary and secondary school students? Reasons often cited are the learning required to master the technology, low-end graphics cards, poor…

This study examines student preferences and behavior when navigating online multimedia modules dedicated to teaching cultural aspects associated with an L2, and the contribution of the online multimedia format of the modules to raising interest in these cultural topics. It focuses on student options regarding reading texts on the modules' main…

This article focuses on the potential of free tools, particularly inquiry tools for influencing participation in twenty-first-century learning in science, as well as influencing the development of communities around tools. Two examples are presented: one on the development of an open source tool for structured inquiry learning that can bridge the…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to analyze the usability of a remote learning system in its initial development phase, using a quantitative usability evaluation method through Markov models. Design/methodology/approach: The paper opted for an exploratory study. The data of interest of the research correspond to the possible accesses of users…

This paper draws upon the experience of an interdisciplinary research group in engaging undergraduate university students in the design and development of semantic web technologies. A flexible approach to participatory design challenged conventional distinctions between "designer" and "user" and allowed students to play a role…

Like many universities worldwide, the University of Cape Town (UCT) in South Africa has joined the open educational resources (OER) movement, making a selection of teaching and learning materials available through its OER directory, UCT OpenContent. However, persuading and then supporting busy academics to share their teaching materials as OER…

With the resources provided by communication technologies, E-learning has been employed in multiple universities, as well as in wide range of training centers and schools. This book presents a structured collection of chapters, dealing with the subject and stressing the importance of E-learning. It shows the evolution of E-learning, with…