The COVID-19 pandemic has affected every aspect of our lives, including instruction in the higher education system. In this sudden and stressful change, faculty had to explore different opportunities and technologies to continue to deliver quality instruction to their students. Instructional design has always been an important topic for education…

Computer-assisted instruction (CAI) resolved the ambivalence of computers in favor of potentials aligned with organizational and pedagogical features of distance education. This "coding" of educational computing confirmed critical appraisals that identified computers with commercialization, commodification, and deskilling. But where…

This article analyses participant experiences and statements about perceived problems in two online conferences to identify tensions and disturbances relating to external factors, conference technology, online discussions and design choices and then considers the underlying contradictions within the conference systems which generate both positive…

Most online courses rely solely on asynchronous text-based online communication. This type of communication can foster anytime, anywhere reflection, critical thinking, and deep learning. However, it can also frustrate participants because of the lack of spontaneity and visual cues and the time it takes for conversations to develop and feedback to…

This case study examined student preference for delivery mode of online courses in two graduate degree programs in Library and Information Science. Within-group and between-groups comparisons indicated a distinct preference across the institutions. Findings from focus groups conducted with two cohorts of students enrolled in a federally funded…

This paper has a dual aim: to situate functionalities among the complex of factors that help shape online interactions and to explore the heterogeneity of audio conferencing and its implications. Following a critical discursive synthesis of the treatment of variables in the literature, attention focuses on the distinctive and diverse…

Online education is popular from a consumer perspective, but there are elements of face-to-face instruction and assessment that are difficult to reproduce online (Bassoppo-Moyo 2006). The difficulty of reproducing valued elements of a face-to-face setting leads to concerns regarding the overall quality of the online learning experience.…

This study investigated the online practices of students enrolled in graduate-level distance education courses. Using interviews and a questionnaire as data sources, the study sought to: (a) identify common practices that students adopt in asynchronous discussions, and (b) gain an understanding of why students adopt them. An analysis of the data…

The last decade has seen a great variety in the ways in which instructors have incorporated the World Wide Web into their traditional classroom courses; however, this combination has not always translated into changes or improvements in teaching and learning. The real challenge has proved to be not the addition of web resources to the traditional…

In November 2008 the Sloan Consortium published "Staying the Course: Online Education in the United States." This study produced survey statistics relating to enrollments in online courses. The study confirmed what most administrators and faculty members already suspected: the growth of online higher education continues to be astounding;…

This paper presents a macro speech act analysis of computer-mediated conferencing on a university course on language pedagogy. Students read scholarly articles on language learning and discussed them online, in order to make sense of them collaboratively in preparation for a reflective essay. The study explores how the course participants made use…

This study explored the use of the Web-based virtual environment, Adobe Connect Pro, in a postgraduate online teacher education programme at the University of Waikato. It applied the tenets of Moore's Theory of Transactional Distance (Moore, 1997) in examining the efficacy of using the virtual classroom to promote quality dialogue and explored how…

Research into tutoring at a distance has a fairly long history and the functions of tutors in distance education institutions are well understood. Over the past 20 years research into online tutoring has advanced significantly as such institutions have "gone electronic": in this paper we cite published research from the UK Open…

This paper is a report of the replication of a seminal study on cognitive presence in computer mediated conferencing (CMC) by Garrison, Anderson, and Archer (2001). A comparison of cognitive presence coding by three different researchers is also demonstrated. The study re-ignites debates about what constitutes the segment of CMC data to be coded…

This book is provided as a guide, encouragement and handbook for faculty to introduce digital media in language they can understand and provide strategies and activities they can quickly assimilate into their teaching. The authors are excited that more people will be able to benefit from the powerful help and guidance contained in this book. This…