The role of educational developers has transitioned from the periphery to the centre of the higher education landscape as these practitioners are working to build capacity in teaching and learning. Yet, little is understood about educational developers themselves, and in particular, how learning theories inform their practice. In a qualitative…

The field of instructional technology has continued to evolve since its inception in the early 1900s. Academic technology units in higher education have witnessed tremendous change in the last one and a half decades. The changes have led to reorganizations, realignments, adoption of innovative administrative structures, increased demands for…

Creating a new generation of leaders and managers has been the task of the innovative U.K. Leadership Foundation for Higher Education. (Contains 1 figure and 1 table.)

Guidelines represent an important instrument in the development of Web-based Training (WBT). They help to create reliable, portable, and interoperable standardized WBTs of high-quality. The development of guidelines can be considered as a key success factor regarding the effectiveness of WBTs. The effects of guidelines can be both favorable and…

Discusses learning style theories and shows how being aware of learning styles can benefit both teachers and students. A case study at the University of Louisiana indicated a prevalence of auditory learners. Despite this finding, educators must be prepared to accommodate all learning styles. The research concludes with a summary of teaching…

Technikon Natal is a higher education contact institution in Durban, South Africa. In the last 6 years, the Online Learning Center has evolved bottom-up, driven by the contagious creative spirit of champion lecturers. Activities have grown to such an extent that it has become necessary for the institution's management to develop an institutional…

Assesses the OpenCourseWare (OCW) initiative at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, whereby MIT offers free, online access to its course materials. Provides readers with a broader sense of OCW's implications for higher education. Addresses some issues raised in response to the initiative-the role of intellectual property rights, the…

This paper focuses on the management and change domains of educational technology (ET), namely the need for ET leadership in higher education. Leadership issues are examined with respect to instructional development, faculty development, and instructional technology/media management in higher education and the roles ET practitioners can play.…

On July 15-16, 1999, a group of 20 higher education leaders gathered in Roanoke, Virginia to participate in an invitational symposium on the topic of "Redesigning More Productive Learning Environments." The goal in Roanoke was to examine the validity of the conceptual framework that undergirds the projects being implemented in the Pew Grant…

A paradigm shift has occurred in the learning-teaching process that includes new ways of pedagogical thinking, post-modern curricula, digital learning, changed social interactions, and linear and lateral thinking. These changes require reorganization of the educational system in general and distance education in particular. Changes in the system…

The College of Education at the University of Hawaii has already begun to create an infrastructure to systematically infuse technology into its curriculum through a new designation of "Technology Intensive" courses. The primary goal of this project was to prepare future teachers to integrate technology into instruction through systematic…

Explores online faculty backgrounds, concerns, and online teaching practices. Participants were all of the instructors at the State University of West Georgia who taught online courses in the fall 1999 semester. Findings provide administrators with information to consider as they wrestle with online delivery issues such as course size limitations…

The importance of learner support has been emphasized over and over in the distance education literature but there is a lack of comprehensive analysis of this issue. Besides that, most of existing studies on learner support are based on large-scale correspondence program and few of them provide guidelines for planning and implementing support…

Once a school district decides to offer students virtual classes, it has to recognize the costs associated with the implementation, the logistical needs, the staff that will be needed to assist students, and the maintenance of the technology. Adapting the philosophy of virtual education is only the beginning. The role of the traditional teacher…

Educators must focus more on designing active learning and less on using the latest technology. As distance education technology develops, educational institutions face increasing costs and decreased budgets, greater diversity, increasing demands for continuing education, and competition from other institutions. Knowledge of instructional design…