Despite the recognition of the benefits that can be achieved through the use of Open Educational Resources (OER) and, more broadly, Open Educational Practices (OEP), there has been little research on the competences that are needed to enable educators to utilise such practices. To contribute to closing this gap, this paper presents a framework of…

Open Educational Resources (OER) are becoming a significant, mission-driven trend within educational literature. To help address rising costs, instructors and designers are looking to OER to effectively replace traditional instructional content, which requires more than just identify and replace. Drawing from 51 OER studies conducted in countries…

Learning design approaches, such as those adopted by the Open University, provide a set of tools and resources for purposefully-designing modules with a focus on student experiences. However, many of the current learning design strategies have been situated within specific institutions in Europe and North America. This means that there are several…

The educational policy in Morocco is aimed at promoting the wide use of Information and Communication Technologies in Education and the adoption of interactive and autonomous digital resources for distance teaching and self-learning. The objective of this research is to evaluate the suitability of the existing digital educational resources for…

This paper aims to analyse the role of Facebook in academia during the Syrian crisis. Data were collected by means of an online survey from 726 students at Damascus University (Males = 446, Females = 280). Results indicated that Facebook facilitated communication and resource sharing in times of war and crisis where safe commuting posed a…

This article comments on some trends in the evolution of science teaching at a distance using the Open University UK (OU UK) experience as a benchmark. Even from the first years of the university there was an understanding of the potential role for media in developing methods for teaching science at a distance, in particular the potential for…

This paper describes the internal motivations and external drivers that led The Open University UK to enter the field of Open Educational Resources through its institution-wide OpenLearn initiative (www.open.ac.uk/openlearn). It also describes some of the emerging evidence of the impacts inside and outside the university. Through the rapid…

When asked what they would find most helpful to enable them to use technologies more in their teaching, most teachers say "give me examples, in my subject area" and "point me to relevant people I can discuss these issues with". Web 2.0 technologies--with their emphasis on sharing, networking and user production--seem to offer a…

English language teaching (ELT) has played an important role in the Chinese Radio and Television Universities (RTVU) network since its establishment in the late 1970s. Based on a literature review and reflection from an insider's perspective, this paper gives a full account of the RTVU distance ELT model, examining how it supports autonomous…

Timely collection of feedback on the quality of teaching from graduates and their employers is of great significance in distance education, and can help enhance the quality of teaching and improve management and all-round learner support. However, since the graduates left university some years ago, are now widely dispersed and consequently may…