Distance-Educator.com e-Newsletter – 6/17/13

Another item from yesterday’s inbox that I would normally have posted yesterday.

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FEATURED ARTICLE Planning and Managing Distance Education Systems: Managing the Model Building Process Farhad Saba, Ph. D. Founder and Editor, Distance-Educator.com In this series of articles, I presented a hierarchical model of distance education consisting of seven interrelated nested systems levels. These systems have been present in most distance education organizations that I observed, or planned and built over the past 30 years. In the previous weeks, I discussed Hardware, Software, Telecommunications, Instructional, Educational, Societal and Global Systems Levels. Last week I started to explain the process of system modeling so that you could start the planning process for your organization. I hope that conducting the environmental scan as presented in a previous article has given you a better appreciation of the components of the technology-based educational programs in your organization and the interrelationships among such components. But before I went any further on the process of modeling itself, I explained certain important concepts in system methodology in this article and showed how these principles can be applied in this article titled Planning and Managing Distance Education Systems: Applying system dynamics. In a subsequent article, I presented a step-by-step application of system dynamics for model building and described how these steps can be implemented in your institution. Also in an article titled Institutional Realities, I explained the inverse relationship between complexity and the process of planning. In more complex institutions, it is difficult to agree on a set of common goals among students, faculty, administrators, taxpayers, and decision makers. In the following article the roles of the team members in the planning process are explained. RESEARCH-BASED ARTICLES OF THE WEEK Unlocking Open Educational Resources (OERs) Interaction Data Each time a teacher or a learner interacts with an Open Educational Resource (OER), these interactions produce data. This “interaction data” includes “artifact data” routinely captured during any online interaction by Web server logs (e.g., users’ browsers, users’ IP addresses) and “social data” created during Web 2.0-style interactions with resources (e.g., tags, comments, ratings, favorites). Interaction data can serve a number of purposes in a period of increased interest worldwide in OERs quality and uptake. First, interaction data is a valuable source of analytics about OERs and typical audience profiles. Second, combined with metadata, interaction data can enhance searching, ranking, and recommendations of learning resources. However, obtaining this data is not always easy since OERs, in particular, are generally dispersed among different systems where the interactions between resources and their users take place. This paper describes approaches to unlocking, collecting and aggregating this interaction data. D-Lib Magazine Experience of developing Twitter-based communities of practice in higher education This article presents the results of a case study of the use of a microblogging tool by a university academic to increase their knowledge and experience of social media for educational purposes. The academic had the role of digital steward in a university and attempted to use microblogging (Twitter) to increase professional contacts within the framework of a community of practice. Several types of data were collected and analysed. These included the structure of the network arising from the links formed with others by microblogging, the similarity of stated interests between the academic and others in the network, and the contents of postings such as their external references. It was found that a personal network had been established, with some of the characteristics of a community of practice. The activity demonstrated the utility of social media in supporting the professional development of academic staff using technology. Research in Learning Technology A Longitudinal Study of Online Learners: Shoppers, Swirlers, Stoppers, and Succeeders as a Function of Demographic Characteristics “Look at your past. Your past has determined where you are at this moment. What you do today will determine here you are tomorrow. Are you moving forward or standing still?” Tom Hopkins Abstract During the past decade, the convenience of online learning has afforded postsecondary students of all ages the opportunity to attend and complete online programs—especially to those students who have full and/or part-time employment, dependents, and those maintaining busy schedules. The benefits of taking online courses include flexibility, convenience, and cost-effective educational opportunities anywhere and anytime. Despite these well-known affordances, postsecondary institutions offering online courses are also fully aware of the challenges concomitant with this learning environment—most notably, student retention. Numerous studies have approached the retention, progression, and completion issue from a variety of angles attempting to predict, classify, identify, and increase opportunities for students to reach their personal academic goals. Rather than repositioning and assuming a new angle, the authors of this study chose to fuse these well established–yet isolated angles. Therefore, the purpose of this study was (1) to identify significant student demographic predictors among students who dis-enroll (“stoppers”), reenroll (“swirlers” and/or “shoppers”), and/or complete their online program of study (“succeeders”), and (2) to calculate the variance among the significant predictors. Online Journal of Distance Learning Administration Examining Christian College Students’ Summer School Choices Faculty and administrators use anecdotal evidence to assume the reasons full-time traditional students at private Christian colleges choose to take online summer courses at community colleges instead of their own online offerings. The purpose of this research was to provide empirical evidence necessary to make informed decisions regarding strategic planning for enrollment efforts at private Christian colleges. Students in the research sample placed the highest priority on summer courses they perceived to be cheaper and easier. Implications for distance learning administrators are presented. Online Journal of Distance Learning Administration Supporting the General Education Program for Distance and Adult Students How do you blend General Education competencies (i.e. communication, ethical/logical/mathematical reasoning) across an institution and curriculum? Kaplan University’s General Education program integrates and assesses student proficiency in General Education disciplines across all undergraduate programs. The data is used to inform curricular improvements in a continuous process for maximizing student learning. Online Journal of Distance Learning Administration IN THE NEWS AAUP Sees MOOCs as Spawning New Threats to Professors’ Intellectual Property Colleges broadly threaten faculty members’ copyrights and academic freedom in claiming ownership of the massive open online courses their instructors have developed, Cary Nelson, a former president of the American Association of University Professors, argued here on Wednesday at the group’s annual conference. The Chronicle of Higher Education New Research Effort Aims to Examine Effectiveness of MOOCs As more and more colleges experiment with massive open online courses, or MOOCs, a new project hopes to cut through the hype and gauge the effectiveness of the courses. Wired Campus G8 science ministers endorse open access Science ministers from the G8 group of the world’s richest countries have jointly endorsed the need to increase access to publicly-funded research. Times Higher Education 29th Annual Conference on Distance Teaching & Learning The 29th Annual Conference on Distance Teaching & Learning features keynotes, Dr. Richard Baraniuk from Rice University and Dr. Sally Johnstone from Western Governors University. The three-day schedule has more than 150 educational opportunities plus several networking events. Farhad (Fred) Saba, Ph. D. Founder and Editor Distance-Educator.com

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Distance-Educator.com e-Newsletter – 6/10/13

From today’s inbox…

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DISTANCE-EDUCATOR.COM SURVEY Take the Survey We launched our survey last week and have received great feedback. If you haven’t had the chance to respond yet, please take a few minutes and respond. Your feedback is invaluable to us. We will use your suggestions, ideas, and opinions in our upcoming redesign. That’s right, we are in the process of redesigning Distance-Educator! Since 1995, we’ve been providing you with quality and curated content from across the web. Now, we want to know how we can make Distance-Educator even better! We appreciate you and your readership! FEATURED ARTICLE Planning and Managing Distance Education Systems: Institutional Realities Farhad Saba, Ph. D. Founder and Editor, Distance-Educator.com In this series of articles, I presented a hierarchical model of distance education consisting of seven interrelated nested systems levels. These systems have been present in most distance education organizations that I observed, or planned and built over the past 30 years. In the previous weeks, I discussed Hardware, Software, Telecommunications, Instructional, Educational, Societal and Global Systems Levels. Last week I started to explain the process of system modeling so that you could start the planning process for your organization. I hope that conducting the environmental scan as presented in a previous article has given you a better appreciation of the components of the technology-based educational programs in your organization and the interrelationships among such components. But before I went any further on the process of modeling itself, I explained certain important concepts in system methodology in this article and showed how these principles can be applied in this article titled Planning and Managing Distance Education Systems: Applying system dynamics. In a subsequent article, I presented a step-by-step application of system dynamics for model building and described how these steps can be implemented in your institution. In this article I will explain the inverse relationship between complexity and the process of planning. In more complex institutions, it is difficult to agree on a set of common goals among students, faculty, administrators, taxpayers, and decision makers. RESEARCH-BASED ARTICLES OF THE WEEK Retention and Intention in Massive Open Online Courses: In Depth Retention in MOOCs should be considered in the context of learner intent, especially given the varied backgrounds and motivations of students who choose to enroll. When viewed in the appropriate context, the apparently low retention in MOOCs is often reasonable. EDUCAUSE Review Pedagogical quality enrichment in OER based courseware: Guiding principles This is a critical phase for Open Educational Resources (OER) movement: on one side the number of OER is increasing rapidly, and on other side debates about quality of OER-based courseware are heating up. These debates emanate from the fact that OER-based courseware are supposed to help users to follow a logical learning path and get an engaging, interactive, and enjoyable learning experience. There are two aspects of quality assurance in OER-based courseware: content and pedagogy. The content aspect primarily rests with subject experts, and pedagogical quality of courseware mainly lies in the hands of developers. Present trends reveal that mainly enthusiasts, working with some support from the institution management are designing and developing OER-based courseware. There seems a possibility that these enthusiasts are developing courseware without undergoing any specific courseware development training, and in the absence of proper knowledge and training about pedagogy, one can not be sure that the produced courseware will be of superior quality. In this backdrop, present paper discusses and details about a number of guiding principles for enrichment of pedagogical quality in OER-based courseware. Open Praxis The use and production of OER & OCW in teaching in South African higher education institutions (Case Study) With thousands of materials having been produced and shared openly and freely on the Internet as Open Educational Resources (OER) or OpenCourseWare (OCW), the focus of the Open Education movement has shifted toward the need to demonstrate how such materials are being used, by whom and with what impact. This paper reports on the uses, the motivation for and perceived benefits of use, as well as the challenges of using or producing OER/OCW among academics at public Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) in South Africa (SA). Findings revealed widespread use of OER/OCW amongst respondents in their teaching endeavors, with a number of reported benefits. Findings also revealed respondents’ educational rationale for using or producing OER /OCW. Identified challenges to using or producing OER/OCW are related to licensing issues, institutional challenges or infrastructural problems. The paper proposes several recommendations to advance the use and production of OER/OCW in SA public higher education. Open Praxis Open education resources and mobile technology to narrow the learning divide As the world becomes more digitized, there will be an increasing need to make available learning resources in electronic format for access by information and communication technologies. The question education will face is whether these learning resources will be available for learners to access at no cost or affordable cost so that there will be equity in access by anyone regardless of location, status, or background. With initiatives such as the Millennium Development Goals and Education For All by the United Nations (United Nations, 2011) learning materials must be available as open education resources to achieve the goals. Currently, most learning materials are available at a cost for people to purchase to learn, or they have to travel to a specific location (school or library) to access learning materials. In some parts of the world, especially in developing countries, these costs are prohibitive, preventing learners from achieving a basic level of education so that they can be productive in society and improve their quality of life (Bhavnani et al., 2008). Some would say that people in remote locations and developing countries do not have computers to access learning materials. It is true that many do not have desktop or laptop computers to access learning materials, but they have mobile devices and are now obtaining tablets with wireless capability to allow them to access learning materials from anywhere and at any time. These countries are bypassing the wired desktop stage and moving directly to wireless mobile technology (Bhavnani et al., 2008). Storing open education resources (OER) in electronic repositories will allow learners to access the resources using mobile technology. With mobile technologies, learners can complete coursework and assessments from anywhere and send their work to their tutors electronically and receive feedback (GSMA, 2011). International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning Moving to open educational resources at Athabasca University: A case study Since the birth of the World Wide Web, educators have been exchanging ideas and sharing resources online. They are all aware of the turmoil in higher education created by freely available content, including some hopeful developments charted in this issue. Interest has grown steadily over the past decade in making a university-level education openly available to students around the globe who would otherwise be overlooked, and recommendations for how to do this are well documented (e.g., UNESCO, 2002; OECD, 2007). Initiatives in the United States (Thille, 2012), Canada (Stacey, 2011b), Africa (OER Africa, n.d.), and the United Kingdom (JISC, 2012) are easily accessed and case studies abound (e.g., Barrett, Grover, Janowski, van Lavieren, Ojo, & Schmidt, 2009). Supporting the widespread availability of OER is a goal that Athabasca University (AU) has embraced through association with the Commonwealth of Learning and by becoming a charter member of the OER University (OERu, 2011). The use of OER in AU programs has strategic local implications that go beyond the five reasons for institutions to engage in OER projects described by Hylén (2006). Recently at AU explorations have begun into the potential of using OER in course design and production. International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning IN THE NEWS San Diego Global Knowledge University Signs Agreement with China Education Association for International Exchange San Diego Global Knowledge University (SDGKU) has just signed a historic collaboration agreement with the China Education Association for International Exchange (CEAIE). Distance-Educator.com California Bill Allowing Credit for MOOCs Passes Senate California state senators voted unanimously last Thursday to pass Senate Bill 520 (SB 520), despite opposition from faculty at California Community Colleges, California State University, and University of California. The bill establishes incentive grant programs for the state’s public universities and colleges to develop online courses on massive open online course (MOOC) platforms, such as Udacity and Coursera, as a way of reducing the bottleneck for required gateway courses. Campus Technology Obama Promises to Have High-Speed Internet in Most Schools in 5 Years MOORESVILLE, N.C. — President Obama visited an innovative middle school in central North Carolina on Thursday to demonstrate the Internet-based education programs that he is proposing to make available nationwide. The New York Times As Course-Management Market Gets More Competitive, Instructure Raises $30-Million in Funds Instructure, a company that sells course-management software, announced on Wednesday that it had won $30-million in venture-capital funds, and some observers said the company was gaining ground on Blackboard, which has long dominated the market for learning-management systems, or LMS. Wired Campus Farhad (Fred) Saba, Ph. D. Founder and Editor Distance-Educator.com

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Distance-Educator.com e-Newsletter – 6/3/13

Another item from yesterday’s inbox…

DISTANCE-EDUCATOR.COM SURVEY Take the Survey Since 1995, we’ve been providing you with quality and curated content from across the web. Now, we want to know how we can make Distance-Educator even better! We’ve compiled a few questions that we’d like your feedback on. The quick survey should take a few minutes but the feedback is invaluable to us. We will use your suggestions, ideas, and opinions in our upcoming redesign. That’s right, we are in the process of redesigning Distance-Educator! We appreciate you and your readership! FEATURED ARTICLE Planning and Managing Distance Education Systems: Building a Model in Your Institution Farhad Saba, Ph. D. Founder and Editor, Distance-Educator.com In this series of articles, I presented a hierarchical model of distance education consisting of seven interrelated nested systems levels. These systems have been present in most distance education organizations that I observed, or planned and built over the past 30 years. In the previous weeks, I discussed Hardware, Software, Telecommunications, Instructional, Educational, Societal and Global Systems Levels. Last week I started to explain the process of system modeling so that you could start the planning process for your organization. I hope that conducting the environmental scan as presented in a previous article has given you a better appreciation of the components of the technology-based educational programs in your organization and the interrelationships among such components. But before I went any further on the process of modeling itself, I explained certain important concepts in system methodology in this article and showed how these principles can be applied in this article titled Planning and Managing Distance Education Systems: Applying system dynamics. In a subsequent article, I presented a step-by-step application of system dynamics for model building. In this article, I will review these steps in the context of applying it to your institution. RESEARCH-BASED ARTICLES OF THE WEEK eBooks As a Collection and a Service: Developing a Public Library Instruction Program to Support eBook UseA A majority of United States public libraries now offer eBooks to their patrons. While much focus in library literature has been given to how public libraries license digital content and the various disputes with publishers that this has entailed, much less attention has been paid to users. This article addresses this gap in library literature by providing a case study of Chatham Community Library’s adoption of eBooks from a user services perspective. Chatham Community Library is a dual-use public and community college library in central North Carolina. The authors describe the development and evolution of eBook instruction sessions that are now regularly offered at the library and how the staff serves patrons, especially older adults, who use eBooks. The authors also discuss the implications of eBooks for public libraries, how eBooks complement the library’s existing print collections, and how eBooks promote transliteracy. Particular attention is given to decision-making and to details that might benefit other librarians developing similar instruction programs. Journal of Library Innovation Meeting information literacy outcomes: Partnering with faculty to create effective information literacy assessment This paper outlines the attempt by librarians at California State University Channel Islands (CI) to authentically assess the information literacy levels of first-year and third-year students, their partnership with faculty from CI’s writing and rhetoric programme in receiving a grant for this endeavour, the creation of a rubric and specialised assignment to facilitate the assessment process and the initial assessment data that came from the three-year grant period. Information gathered during our pilot study suggests that student information literacy proficiency levels can been determined by assessing student writing assignments, and that a targeted rubric is an effective authentic assessment measure in this endeavour. This study is of use to practising librarians as it highlights the efforts of the authors to partner with faculty, not only in assessing student papers, but also in creating a rubric and specialised bibliography assignment that can be used by librarians and faculty at their institutions. Journal of Information Literacy Download Document– The Bologna Process: Its impact in Europe and beyond Worldwide, it is felt that transparency and trust among higher education systems are needed to improve the global attractiveness and competitiveness of higher education. The Bologna Process represents an attempt to achieve this. It was an initiative by European countries to harmonize European educational programmes to provide comparable, compatible, and coherent systems of higher education in the region. The Bologna Declaration, signed in 1999 by the higher education ministers of International Institute for Educational Planning (www.iiep.unesco.org) 29 countries, envisaged the creation of a common degree structure, the introduction of a common credit system and quality assurance mechanism, and the promotion of the mobility of students and academic and administrative personnel between institutions and countries. UNESCO Innovations in incapacity: Education, technique, subject This essay addresses the question of change as it is expressed in debates on the introduction and use of new digital technologies in contemporary education. It sets out some of the terms of this debate, concerning MOOCs in particular, and puts into question the very conception of change they presume. The essay advocates a distinction between education, which marks the subjective capacity of all for thought, and pedagogy, which, the essay argues, teaches subjective incapacity for all. The case is made that without a formal conception of change MOOCs will only strengthen the contemporary pedagogical project of difference as repetition. In conclusion, the essay attempts to sketch a conception of real change such that a new orientation to the debate is proposed. Digital Culture & Education Shared Photonarratives in an Online Master’s Course: Reflection, Context and Community Distance education has potential to reach teachers from diverse areas, but the challenges of building community and promoting reflection in these settings can be considerable. In this study, photonarratives were used as an assignment in a distance education course to promote reflection on science teaching. Twenty science teachers (half from rural areas) produced photonarratives that included photos and descriptions of helping and hindering factors related to their science teaching. Analysis of the photonarratives showed that two primary categories of factors were both helpful and hindering and included geographic factors (proximity to a community college or facilities) and available technologies (such as probeware or document cameras). A third category, colleagues, came across as a theme among the helping factors alone. The photonarratives served as a tool to empower the teachers by giving them the control to identify and document issues related to their unique science teaching context while also promoting insight into shared issues across the group. The power of photos embedded in personal narratives as a tool for teacher reflection and developing community is discussed. Contemporary Issues in Technology and Teacher Education IN THE NEWS Online Course Platforms Offer Paid Freelance Gigs to Professors As online courses multiply outside the formal structures of academe, professors increasingly have opportunities to earn cash on the side by freelancing. Wired Campus Paperless public libraries switch to digital A public library without any printed books is opening this summer. The phrase “bookless libraries” arrives with a dull, oxymoronic thud, enough to get the blood of any bibliophile boiling. BBC Vanderbilt University creates institute devoted to digital learning, MOOCs As the conversation surrounding massive open online courses (MOOCs) and other means of online learning gets louder, many universities are still trying to sort through the noise and find the most effective ways to implement the evolving MOOC technology. eCampus News COIL – Virtual mobility without commercialization Much, if not all, of the debate in higher education seems to be focused these days on massive open online courses, or MOOCs, which according to several people should be considered nothing less than a revolutionary new model for higher education teaching and learning. University World News Farhad (Fred) Saba, Ph. D. Founder and Editor Distance-Educator.com

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Distance-Educator.com e-Newsletter – 5/28/13

Another item from yesterday’s inbox that I didn’t get a chance to post because I was traveling.

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FEATURED ARTICLE Planning and Managing Distance Education Systems: Modeling Your Organization Farhad Saba, Ph. D. Founder and Editor, Distance-Educator.com In this series of articles, I presented a hierarchical model of distance education consisting of seven interrelated nested systems levels. These systems have been present in most distance education organizations that I observed, or planned and built over the past 30 years. In the previous weeks, I discussed Hardware, Software, Telecommunications, Instructional, Educational, Societal and Global Systems Levels. Last week I started to explain the process of system modeling so that you could start the planning process for your organization. I hope that conducting the environmental scan as presented in a previous article has given you a better appreciation of the components of the technology-based educational programs in your organization and the interrelationships among such components. But before I went any further on the process of modeling itself, I explained certain important concepts in system methodology in this article and showed how these principles can be applied in this article titled Planning and Managing Distance Education Systems: Applying system dynamics. Further, I presented an example in systems modeling in detail, and now I will proceed to explain how you can use the information above to build a model of your organization. RESEARCH-BASED ARTICLES OF THE WEEK eBooks As a Collection and a Service: Developing a Public Library Instruction Program to Support eBook Use A majority of United States public libraries now offer eBooks to their patrons. While much focus in library literature has been given to how public libraries license digital content and the various disputes with publishers that this has entailed, much less attention has been paid to users. This article addresses this gap in library literature by providing a case study of Chatham Community Library’s adoption of eBooks from a user services perspective. Chatham Community Library is a dual-use public and community college library in central North Carolina. The authors describe the development and evolution of eBook instruction sessions that are now regularly offered at the library and how the staff serves patrons, especially older adults, who use eBooks. The authors also discuss the implications of eBooks for public libraries, how eBooks complement the library’s existing print collections, and how eBooks promote transliteracy. Particular attention is given to decision-making and to details that might benefit other librarians developing similar instruction programs. Journal of Library Innovation Meeting information literacy outcomes: Partnering with faculty to create effective information literacy assessment This paper outlines the attempt by librarians at California State University Channel Islands (CI) to authentically assess the information literacy levels of first-year and third-year students, their partnership with faculty from CI’s writing and rhetoric programme in receiving a grant for this endeavour, the creation of a rubric and specialised assignment to facilitate the assessment process and the initial assessment data that came from the three-year grant period. Information gathered during our pilot study suggests that student information literacy proficiency levels can been determined by assessing student writing assignments, and that a targeted rubric is an effective authentic assessment measure in this endeavour. This study is of use to practising librarians as it highlights the efforts of the authors to partner with faculty, not only in assessing student papers, but also in creating a rubric and specialised bibliography assignment that can be used by librarians and faculty at their institutions. Journal of Information Literacy IN THE NEWS The Rise of eText eText consultant Rand Spiwak engages in an informative discussion of electronic texts and considers how higher education institutions can prepare for a shift from print to digital course materials and textbooks. Campus Technology The latest trends in MOOCs The battle for and against massive open online courses (MOOCs) rages on as we head into summer, with new arguments emerging on both sides of the MOOC divide. eCampus News Farhad (Fred) Saba, Ph. D. Founder and Editor Distance-Educator.com

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Distance-Educator.com e-Newsletter – 5/20/13

From the inbox a few minutes ago…

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FEATURED ARTICLE Planning and Managing Distance Education Systems: Building the Model Dr. Farhad (Fred) Saba Founder and Editor, Distance-Educator.com In this series of articles, I presented a hierarchical model of distance education consisting of seven interrelated nested systems levels. These systems have been present in most distance education organizations that I observed, or planned and built over the past 30 years. In the previous weeks, I discussed Hardware, Software, Telecommunications, Instructional, Educational, Societal and Global Systems Levels. Last week I started to explain the process of system modeling so that you could start the planning process for your organization. I hope that conducting the environmental scan as presented in a previous article has given you a better appreciation of the components of the technology-based educational programs in your organization and the interrelationships among such components. But before I went any further on the process of modeling itself, I explained certain important concepts in system methodology in this article and showed how these principles can be applied in this article titled Planning and Managing Distance Education Systems: Applying system dynamics. Below, you will see an example in systems modeling in detail. RESEARCH-BASED ARTICLES OF THE WEEK Access the complete current issue of the journal of the Asian Association of Open Universities Designing an online learning environment on Open Educational Resources for science education Shironica Karunanayaka, Chandana Fernando and Vajira de Silva Personalised system of instruction: The ODL way Prakash Arumugam Comparative study on the usage of an online plagiarism-detection service when presenting distance learning courses Loo Choo Hong and Tung Lai Cheng Floundering among adult learners in classrooms: Fact or fallacy? Nantha Kumar Subramaniam and Maheswari Kandasamy Determinants of students’ loyalty at Universitas Terbuka Maximus Gorky Sembiring The establishment of academic credit accumulation and transfer system: A case study of Shanghai Academic Credit Transfer and Accumulation Bank for Lifelong Education Huikang Li, Yaoting Sun, Min Yang and Zhihui Wei Faculty: A success factor in improving quality of distance learning Muhammad Zaheer Supportive role of the“CBCI Chair” at IGNOU in ODL programme development Gracious Thomas Theoretical and practical dilemma of distance learning: The case of Universitas Terbuka Indonesia Hanif Nurcholis and Ace Sriati Rachman Addressing the issues of low student enrollment: The case of the Kandy Regional Centre of the Open University of Sri Lanka P.S.D. Aluwihare and R. Manoshika Independent learning skill, competence and job performance of graduates of Universitas Terbuka: Perceptions of graduates and supervisors Dewi Juliah Ratnaningsih Unlocking Open Educational Resources (OERs) Interaction Data Each time a teacher or a learner interacts with an Open Educational Resource (OER), these interactions produce data. This “interaction data” includes “artifact data” routinely captured during any online interaction by Web server logs (e.g., users’ browsers, users’ IP addresses) and “social data” created during Web 2.0-style interactions with resources (e.g., tags, comments, ratings, favorites). Interaction data can serve a number of purposes in a period of increased interest worldwide in OERs quality and uptake. First, interaction data is a valuable source of analytics about OERs and typical audience profiles. Second, combined with metadata, interaction data can enhance searching, ranking, and recommendations of learning resources. However, obtaining this data is not always easy since OERs, in particular, are generally dispersed among different systems where the interactions between resources and their users take place. This paper describes approaches to unlocking, collecting and aggregating this interaction data. D-Lib Mabaziine Up and Away: Open Access in Portugal Portugal stands out among nations that have embraced open access to scholarly communication because of its early adoption of institutional policies, creation of a network of repositories, and effective system of governance. And, nonprofit international publishing initiatives play an important role in opening up entire runs of Portuguese academic journals. EDUCAUSE Review Online Introducing blended learning: An experience of uncertainty for students in the United Arab Emirates The cultural dimension of Uncertainty Avoidance is analysed in this study of an introduction to blended learning for international students. Content analysis was conducted on the survey narratives collected from three cohorts of management undergraduates in the United Arab Emirates. Interpretation of certainty with blended learning was found in: student skills with technology; student acknowledgement of course organisation; and student appreciation of online feedback. Uncertainty with the introduction of blended learning was found: when membership was assigned for group work, higher quality research methods were introduced; where course structure lacked detail, increased time was required for new and different online activities. These international students, from countries with a high score on Uncertainty Avoidance, exhibited that dimension when introduced to blended learning. The implications of these findings are discussed, and strategies suggested for introducing blended learning to international students. The limitations of the study are considered, and a direction for future research is suggested. This is the first study on undergraduates in the Middle East for the effects of a cultural dimension when introducing blended learning. The findings increase the body of knowledge that relates to learning technology in the international business classroom. Research in Learning Technology IN THE NEWS Embrace Moocs or face decline, warns v-c “It’s Mooc or die”, a university vice-chancellor has said, claiming that institutions must embrace the massive open online course movement and adapt their teaching methods or face a tough future. Times Higher Education Massive (But Not Open) The Georgia Institute of Technology plans to offer a $7,000 online master’s degree to 10,000 new students over the next three years without hiring much more than a handful of new instructors. Inside Higher Education Kids coding in the cloud One of the most popular online destinations on the MIT network is not a website for scientists, engineers or college students, but an online community where kids learn to code. MIT Media Lab Farhad (Fred) Saba, Ph. D. Founder and Editor Distance-Educator.com

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