Online learning communities play a crucial role in delivering high-quality courses to a large number of learners. However, to maintain an economically sustainable and constantly evolving online learning ecosystem, it is essential to create a virtuous cycle from knowledge production to knowledge consumption by charging learners to incentivize…

The aim of this study is to enlighten and discuss Post Graduate student teachers' first time experiences and their level of satisfaction with the use of Moodle Learning Management System (LMS) during their "Research Methods in Education" course offered online. This study investigated 30 pre-service Post Graduate student teachers' to…

Much of the existing research in distance education has focused on contrasting the outcomes between traditional face-to-face teaching and purely online courses, in which the entire course content is delivered online. However, research has not examined the effectiveness of hybrid-online courses, in which a combination of online delivery and…

Student demand and budget shortages have influenced the need for land-grant institutions to offer online courses. Research has identified that online courses broaden the reach of land-grant institutions to students who may not have access to campus. Literature indicated student satisfaction in online courses should be routinely assessed in order…

While the development of online education has been progressing rapidly, further research is needed on the experiences of students in online courses. One concept that has been explored in relation to the quality of the online learning experience is social presence, the degree to which a person is perceived as "real" in mediated communication. The…

The purpose of this study was to test for statistically significant differences between students in an online and traditional (face-to-face) teacher education programs with their perceptions of social connectedness and satisfaction with their learning experiences at a research-intensive institution located in the southern region of the United…

Notwithstanding the growth of online learning, little is known about the personal factors that predict student decisions to enroll in online courses. This study examined the relations between several personal factors and students' choice of instructional format. After completing an online course, service academy undergraduates (N = 564) completed…

This paper provides qualitative student-centered research from an online Research Methodology course taught partly within the immersive, 3-D environment of Second Life with fifty-eight graduate psychology students for the purpose of suggesting a constructivist-based instruction model for immersive environments. A qualitative method approach was…

In this article, Joanna Dunlap, Jackie Dobrovolny, and David Young describe their approach to the design of a real-world learning experience that prepares online graduate students to work as e-learning designers and specialists. Using Kolb's model of experiential learning to support their instructional design decisions, Dunlap, Dobrovolny, and…

The 2005 National Online Learners Priorities Report presents the responses to the Noel-Levitz Priorities Survey for Online Learners (PSOL) of 16,551 students from 60 institutions. The results include online learner responses over a four-year time period, from 2001 through 2005. Highlights include: (1) Online students' priorities for their learning…

Online courses are appearing at a high rate, increasing the competitiveness of the distance learning market. Reluctance to invest in this area is due to cost and quality concerns. This study reports the findings of a survey of 700 professional and graduate education students regarding their comfort with technology, satisfaction with those…