As Ph.D. education continues to evolve, hybrid programs have gained popularity by offering flexibility and accessibility to diverse student populations. However, a critical gap exists in understanding how students develop and maintain academic relationships and scholarly community in these environments. Specifically, research has not sufficiently…

State-level departments of education vary in their mechanisms for monitoring online courses and programs. This study reviewed various state models for initial and ongoing evaluation of online courses. Five constructs were identified through this review, and examples from Georgia, Maryland, California, Washington, and Colorado were detailed. The…

A traditional classroom atmosphere, creates a paradigm in which university professors must be able to quickly identify and accommodate differences among student-learning needs to achieve favorable academic performance scores while simultaneously working within university policies regarding course deviation(s) or alteration(s) in dates and times.…

What constitutes excellence in teaching for university faculty when they are expected or required to create quality online courses? This is a question that will increasingly be asked of members of promotion and tenure committees as market pressures demand entire degrees be delivered online. Developing a quality online course is a significant…

Faculty members play a central role in the development, implementation, and long-term sustainability of online and blended education programs. Therefore, faculty recruitment and retention strategies for these programs must align with the needs of the faculty. This article highlights the results of an institutional study conducted at a public…

Research literature is flush with articles discussing how teachers use individual learning management systems. However, very few studies examine how faculty are affected as they move from one platform to another. This study addresses that gap and examines how faculty adapt their online teaching practices as they migrate systems. In doing so,…

Asynchronous online threaded discussions are widely recognized as a tool to enhance learning in the virtual classroom. While they can serve as a mechanism for reinforcing material and promoting a deeper understanding of course content, discussion boards often lack rich and dynamic dialogue, and instead serve as a field of obligatory discourse,…

The need for online and blended programs within higher education continues to grow as the student population in the United States becomes increasingly non-traditional. As administrators strategically offer and expand online and blended programs, faculty recruitment and retention will be key. This case study highlights how a public comprehensive…

The incorporation of new learning technologies into courses at Canadian universities has been largely undertaken at the initiative of individual instructors, rather than in response to explicit institutional direction or faculty initiatives. This appears to be particularly the case with the migration of individual courses that were formally…

This study explores the implementation, student satisfaction, and the effectiveness of an online academic support course required for students on academic probation at a mid-sized private institution in the Northeast. Although it is often considered that students on academic probation may not exhibit the typical characteristics associated with…

Using an explanatory mixed methods design, this study uses the National Standards of Quality for Online Courses to measure the extent to which teachers in a blended middle school and a fully online supplemental high school are designing quality online learning environments for students. As a part of fully online graduate coursework, graduate…

This article addresses critical issues for consideration when deciding whether an MBA program should go online. First, background information on various types of distance learning is provided followed by a discussion regarding research on the effectiveness of online courses. Pertinent contextual issues such as alignment of goals, technology, and…

Internet technologies blur the distinction between distance learning and traditional learning by enabling the convergence of these two, thus causing confusion in widely-accepted definitions, terminologies, concepts, and theories on distance learning. This paper introduces an e-education framework with three reference models in order to reduce the…

Building a dynamic international distance education program can be a complex operation. The purpose of this paper is to discuss a model for global learning that utilizes a blended learning approach. This paper will describe how a blended learning approach was implemented in an international instructional technology Master's program to the benefit…

The idea that distance education lacks intimacy and is therefore inferior is based on an embedded metaphor that sustains a restricted and limiting mental model of ideal instruction. The authors analyze alternative conceptualizations of intimacy, space, and place as factors in the development of effective instructional models. They predict that the…