Economic arguments for the adoption of "open source" software in business have been widely discussed. In this paper we draw on personal experience in the UK, South Africa and Southeast Asia to forward compelling reasons why open source software should be considered as an appropriate and affordable alternative to the currently prevailing…

As online collaborative technologies become easier to use, an increasing range of "virtual communities" are being established, often for educational purposes. This report stresses that an efficient technology is only part of the process underlying a successful online community. It considers the social process on which an online learning community…

This paper describes the design of a web-based learning module. The aim in the design was to operationalize the concepts of granularity, reusability, scalability, and interoperability as they relate to learning objects. The prototypical module was designed for contexts where identifying and solving ill-structured problems is relevant. The module…

This article outlines the use of the online "SpeakEasy" communication package in two sections of a mathematics methods course in an elementary education teacher certification program. The instructional uses of "SpeakEasy" are described, with specific attention to the manner in which it was woven into the fabric of the course and made central to…

Many changes have occurred in the context of marketing education during the past decade, including the increased use of new technology-based and experiential pedagogies. To update the understanding of how students in advanced marketing courses perceive marketing pedagogies in this new context, a replication and extension of Karns's study of…

At first glance, education provided over the Internet appears to be an improvement over that provided face to face. For busy adults juggling careers, courses and family obligations, learning via a Web site looks more convenient than attending classes face to face. Web-based courses are also reputed to educate better. Equity is another…

This article provides an overview of Telementoring Orchestrator[TM] (TMO), a new web-based software tool designed to aid small or large organizations in supporting telementoring programs (also called online mentoring or e-mentoring programs). In this report, we review the research that inspired the design of the software, and survey the major…

In the first 24 months of the project, KP-Lab members were highly dedicated to dissemination and were engaged in various dissemination activities that contributed to the prime objective of the KP-Lab dissemination efforts which is "to make the project widely known to a variety of prospective users and, at a later stage, to promote the…

Our essential premise in this article is that immersive learning is not new and that, as a practical matter, it is useful to view the relatively new virtual world platforms through that lens. By doing so, the premise continues, developers of learning experiences for these spaces will have a large theoretical base upon which to draw, as well as…

While Garrison and colleagues' (2000) Community of Inquiry (CoI) framework has generated substantial interest among online learning researchers, it has yet to be subjected to extensive quantitative verification or tested for external validity. Using a sample of students from 55 online MBA courses, the findings of this study suggest strong…

Although protocol analysis can be an important tool for researchers to investigate the process of collaboration and communication, the use of this method of analysis can be time consuming. Hence, an automatic coding procedure for coding dialogue acts was developed. This procedure helps to determine the communicative function of messages in online…

This article discusses a study which was designed to explore how online scaffolding can be incorporated to support knowledge acquisition in asynchronous discussion. A group of Singapore preservice teachers engaged in collaborative critiquing of videos before they embarked on their video projects to illustrate what constitutes good and bad video…

This monograph is divided into three main sections: theoretical grounding, student identity, and implications. The first section, theoretical grounding of parental involvement, looks at the reasons parents today are more likely to be involved in their students' lives and then reviews the literature of K-12 education and compares that information…

Academic administrators play a critical role in supporting and otherwise encouraging faculty to participate in web-based learning. In the fall of 2000, administrators at five academic institutions in the University of Texas System were surveyed concerning their attitudes on web-based learning. Administrators were defined as Chairs, Deans, and Vice…

Purpose: The elearn2work study of learning styles in the context of small to micro firms' (SMFs) and their perceived satisfaction has identified some important finding specific to e-learning content design, delivery and international standards development. Design/methodology/approach: The method of research adopts a deductive rather than an…