Archive for the ‘Research’ Category

Let’s Talk Learning Analytics: A Framework for Implementation in Relation to Student Retention

This paper presents a dialogical tool for the advancement of learning analytics implementation for student retention in Higher Education institutions. The framework was developed as an outcome of a project commissioned and funded by the Australian Government’s Office for Learning and Teaching. The project took a mixed-method approach including a survey at the institutional level […]

Learning Analytics Methods, Benefits, and Challenges in Higher Education: A Systematic Literature Review

Higher education for the 21st century continues to promote discoveries in the field through learning analytics (LA). The problem is that the rapid embrace of of LA diverts educators’ attention from clearly identifying requirements and implications of using LA in higher education. LA is a promising emerging field, yet higher education stakeholders need to become […]

Institutional Characteristics and Student Retention: What Integrated Postsecondary Education Data Reveals About Online Learning

Online course delivery continues to grow as a viable means of providing increased educational access to more students, but low student retention rates remain a major challenge. In this study, key institutional characteristics that influence student retention in postsecondary education are analyzed. These are student-faculty ratio, graduation rate, acceptance rate, enrollment rate, institutional aid rate, […]

Status Tracking and Reporting the Quality Matters Process at the University of North Georgia

The University of North Georgia utilizes the internal Quality Matters (QM) process to review all their online courses. As our online course offerings have increased, the need to devise a system to track the QM process, ensure timely reviews, and begin recertification of previously reviewed courses was necessary. As a result, several reports have been […]

Entrepreneurial Education in a Tertiary Context: A Perspective of the University of South Africa

South Africa is characterised by high unemployment levels, a low Total Early Stage Entrepreneurial Activity rate, and a high small business failure rate. Entrepreneurship and small business development is seen as a solution to end unemployment in South Africa. A study to understand how to improve small business support was conducted at the University of […]

Increasing Access to Higher Education Through Open and Distance Learning: Empirical Findings From Mzuzu University, Malawi

Slowly but surely, open and distance learning (ODL) programmes are being regarded as one of the most practical ways that universities across the world are increasingly adopting in order to increase access to university education.  Likewise, Mzuzu University (MZUNI) set up the Centre for Open and Distance Learning (CODL) to oversee the running of these […]

Download Report: ‘Urgent action’ needed to protect adult education

New report sponsored by The Open University calls for cohesive national strategy to protect adult education DThe first report commissioned by the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Adult Education, sponsored by The Open University and conducted by the Institute for Employment Research (IER) at Warwick University, has called for a cohesive national strategy for adult education. […]

Participant Association And Emergent Curriculum In A MOOC: Can The Community Be The Curriculum?

We investigated how participants associated with each other and developed community in a Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) about Rhizomatic Learning (Rhizo14). We compared learner experiences in two social networking sites (SNSs), Facebook and Twitter. Our combination of thematic analysis of qualitative survey data with analysis of participant observation, activity data, archives and visualisation of […]

To Like or Not to Like: Facebook® in the Higher Education Classroom

Facebook is ubiquitous on university campuses, and yet, at the time of this writing, there was a distinct absence of Facebook in the higher education classroom – except when used by distracted students during a lecture. Facebook has pedagogical potential. Why are some faculty resistant to using Facebook for purposes of teaching and learning? What […]

Influence of Word Clouds on Critical Thinking in Online Discussions: A Content Analysis

This article presents an exploratory research study about the influence of word clouds on critical thinking when they are incorporated into online discussions. In an online discussion, students were asked to critically analyze two speeches, being assigned to one of two conditions: one in which the text was linear, and one in which the text […]