As technological advancements and online education transform higher education, the achievement gap among students is widening rather than closing. Critics suggest that we need to reassess the promises of online education and the connectivism or network learning that is sometimes employed as its pedagogical underpinning. As scholars and…

This article defines 27 criteria for evaluating the functionality of e-learning platforms, grouped into three macro groups: (a) learning management, (b) learning content management, and (c) communications and collaboration tools. The proposed criteria can be used to evaluate any e-learning platform's functionality. They allow teachers and…

This study explored the complex dynamics of student engagement, community of inquiry, and transactional distance in online learning environments. The study analyzed 1,281 participants' responses to identify the factors contributing to online learning outcomes. The research highlighted the crucial role that transactional distance and community of…

Emotion has long been a question of great interest in a wide range of fields. As a general rule, emotions are categorized as positive, which we seek, and negative, from which we turn away. However, empirically-backed connectivists claim that even negative emotions produce positive effects on student performance. What is less clear is how this…

This article discusses the need to innovate education due to global changes to keep its status as a human right and public good and introduces Open Education as a theory to fulfil these requirements. A systematic literature review confirms the hypothesis that a holistic quality framework for Open Education does not exist. For its development, a…

As the popularity of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) continues to grow, studies are emerging to investigate various topics in this area. Most have focused on the learners' perspective, leaving a gap in the literature about MOOC instructors. The current research--conducted in the field of tourism and hospitality--explored early experiences of…

On the one hand, a growing amount of research discusses support for improving online collaborative learning quality, and many indicators are focused to assess its success. On the other hand, thinkLets for designing reputable and valuable collaborative processes have been developed for more than ten years. However, few studies try to apply…

This paper examines the possible characteristics and the value of designing learning activities grounded in connectivism--an emerging learning theory. It is an exploratory attempt to connect the theory to the prevailing technology adoption archetypes used in African contexts with the aim of extracting influences that could shape pedagogical…

Initial studies of learning in massive open online courses (MOOCs) primarily focused on participation patterns and participant experiences. More recently, research has addressed learning theories and offered case studies of different pedagogical designs for MOOCs. Based on a meta-analysis and synthesis of the research literature, this study…

Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) came to prominence with Open Educational Resources Movement (OERM). It was based upon the idea of libre in removal of some permission barriers and gratis in removing the price barrier (Suber, 2008) in learning resources. In line with the theoretical underpinnings of OERM, MOOCs embody primary characteristics of…