This article argues that the history of mass education as it was written in Great Britain between 1870 and 1914 became an important site for debating what it meant to be British and the nature of progress. In particular, it explores different perspectives on when and where to begin a history of mass education, whom or what to make central to it,…

Independent learning in massive open online courses (MOOCs) requires considerable effort from the learners themselves. Blended-learning has been recognised to foster independent learning among undergraduate students. With the popularity of the blended-learning approach to teach in traditional educational settings, little has been mentioned on how…

Recent decades have seen the evolution of UK business schools into international mass education providers. This transformation has developed against a background of institutional changes that jeopardise work conditions in academia. As few studies have examined the relationships between organisational, social and psychological aspects of academic…

This new book is a wide-ranging, contemporary and accessible analysis of familiar and recurring myths about mass education in the United Kingdom. Looking at a variety of important issues and problems, each chapter begins by dispelling myths and assumptions about the classroom, going beyond class, race and gender, to offer analysis of topics such…

What difference does openness make to the ethics of teaching and research? This paper approaches this question both from the perspective of research into the use of open educational resources (OER) in teaching and learning. An outline of the nature and importance of ethics in education research is provided before the basic principles of research…

Using the badged open course, "Taking your first steps into Higher Education", this case study examines how assessment on online open courses draws on concepts of assessment used within formal and informal learning. Our experience was that assessment used within open courses, such as massive open online courses, is primarily determined…

Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) have been a prominent topic of recent educational discussion and debate. MOOCs are, in essence, university-affiliated courses offered to large groups of online learners for little or no cost and are seen by many as a bellwether for change and reform across higher education systems. This study uses content and…

This article explores the emergence and impact of the mission groups in British higher education. The central argument is that given the development of a mass and diversified model of higher education it was inevitable that the higher education institutions would form pressure groups, while increased marketisation and growing inter-institutional…

This article explores several aspects of service quality for the provision of higher education. Alongside the trend of the massification of higher education over the past two decades, higher education institutions are required to review quality across a range of outputs, besides teaching and learning. The study was undertaken within the…

The past two decades have seen the idea of internationalization move into the mainstream of higher education policy and practice, on a global scale. In countries like the US and UK however, higher education is widely perceived as a hierarchical field, where high- and low-status universities are differentiated from one another: serving different…

This paper explores the ways in which information about course pedagogy has been represented to potential students through national descriptors and specifications such as the United Kingdom's Key Information Set. It examines the extent to which such descriptors provide helpful information about pedagogy, for example innovative uses of technology.…

This article reviews key findings from six surveys of technology-enhanced learning (TEL) across the UK higher education (HE) sector, conducted by Universities and Colleges Information Systems Association in association with Jisc. Updating the findings presented by Jenkins, Browne, Walker, and Hewitt [2010. The development of technology enhanced…

The business side of the Lancasterian system of mass schooling has been highlighted by some researchers. However, this feature is usually considered of minor importance compared to other dimensions of that system, namely the social control role of popular education in early nineteenth-century Britain. The present surge of projects and mechanisms…

This article offers some explanations for the simultaneous expansion of special educational services and personnel, with the increasing inclusion in mainstream education of more young people with disabilities and learning difficulties. Following discussions with some 70 professionals, administrators and others in a study in four countries, it…

This paper is an account of the earliest attempt in Africa to make education available to all within the context of what has been called fundamental education or a mass education programme. The paper draws attention to how the demand for mass education during the Second World War years was met by the British government, which, following what…